What we learned from pre-season testing – with Jolyon Palmer

17:43Jolyon Palmer:But yeah, Franco looked consistent and fine. And I was just thinking, the fact that the car can fight for points regularly is a blessing. Because last year, he would have had to do something magic to wind up in the top 10. And we barely saw it with Pierre. So this year, there will be so many chances for him to get points early on. that'll give him more confidence and I think we'll get a much better picture of Franco the F1 driver

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19:17Tom Clarkson:what about red bull racing um mercedes reckons they're the benchmark was that gamesmanship or were there reasons for max verstappen et al to feel confident i think

19:30Jolyon Palmer:if it felt like gamesmanship but then actually rocking up and seeing the the performance of that car they have got good uh good straight line speed they do seem to be able to recharge really well which is the a crucial part of uh of driving this year they are aggressive which has that have been the Red Bull mantra for ages, but you can see Max, he bangs it down the gears so well. He's able to deal with that car that's a little bit loose at the rear, better than anyone else. They're a gear shorter in some corners, which will help to get the recharge. And they seem to be able to deploy energy maybe more freely than anyone else.

20:09Jolyon Palmer:So I start to believe that they have a really good power unit. And I think that's probably the most impressive facet to me, The fact that Red Bull, in this really complex era, where you've got, I mean, we'll get on to Honda, I'm sure. You've got Audi coming in. You've got Ferrari and Mercedes trading blows. But Red Bull now manufacturing their own power unit have done a good enough job that they're in the mix. Don't you find that seriously impressive?

20:37Tom Clarkson:Unbelievable. And to think that their first on-track running with that power unit was at the Barcelona shakedown. And on day one, they did more than 100 laps. Yeah.

20:48Jolyon Palmer:And when you consider, remember in 2014 where they were with Renault as power unit? I mean, they barely were doing any laps. Honda, the tale of 2015 and now 2026 is fairly well documented. And these are guys with an unbelievable record of delivering world championship power units. and Red Bull now in the first iteration of doing their own have got power and reliability and seem to be fairly drivable it's really impressive

21:18Tom Clarkson:Quick word on Isaac Hadjo Max Verstappen's new teammate I think there was a strong argument that this was a good time to be Max Verstappen's teammate at the start of a new rules cycle because Max hasn't had a chance to optimise everything around him yet do you still feel that now? after all the testing or is actually he's in a hard place already well i think i think i've

21:45Jolyon Palmer:decided now there's no good time to be max for staff and's teammate uh the the logic was there new regs for everyone but when you actually see how these cars are playing out i laura mecky said it in in um interviews last week he said max he you know he's been very outspoken doesn't like the cars but he might be the the best suited driver to the cars and that's because of the way that you you're putting so much energy through the rear on deceleration again it's going to destabilize the car and that is famously what he's been very good at controlling a lively rear end getting that all the the the turn in done with really neat inputs making sure you're not not sliding too much but you have a really direct car it's what his teammates have struggled with and is what isaac's now got to deal with so the philosophy which with which his cars are sort of naturally tending to go towards i do think it suits max pretty well on top of that isaac had a pretty unlucky run through testing as well so he was i think both weeks he lost a significant amount of time in the car from reliability yeah reliability nothing nothing that he that he did and he looked okay jp jp actually

23:01Tom Clarkson:right at the very beginning at that barcelona shakedown he put it into the wall exiting the final corner so yeah you know some of it's been self-inflicted and um i just find myself looking back to when pierre gasly crashed during pre-season testing as a new red bull recruit in 2019 and he never really recovered from that but but Helmut Marko is no longer at the team so I think I think there might be a little bit less pressure on the young guys now yeah do you remember Danny

23:34Jolyon Palmer:Kvyat when he jumped into the Red Bull for the first time at Horef and he took the took the nose off it and had to drive around with no front wing for the rest of the day as as a sort of punishment 20 laps just to do something in the car yeah there's there is a bit of previous with the Red second drivers having an early crash as well i i thought he'd get away with that to be honest i don't i don't know the details you know there was not a huge amount of reporting the team had been hush hush of of barcelona but it was a wet day and i think probably he was one of the first

24:04Tom Clarkson:that that felt the full force of that what about those prancing horses uh the dark horses maybe on the grid let's talk ferrari uh leclerc charlotte claire stole the headlines at the end of week two getting the fastest lap of testing um is this ferrari being winter world champions once again which i remember in the 90s they used to get that accolade every year or are they genuine contenders

24:33Jolyon Palmer:this year i think i think can we can we call it both they they they were i've we crowned them world champions of winter testing already uh i loved my favorite thing in the whole of testing was watching that 45 minute window of charles claire day three he put on what six sets of different of new tires c3s then c4s and was just banging through quali sims and seeing him drive the car you could see occasionally there'll be a you know setup there must have been running setup changes because the car would look more lively less lively but any single lap looked animated and it was really quick and he was it was just fun to watch him driving a car that has to be driven on the edge and the car and it looked really good some sometimes he was over the top of oversteering almost dropped it in the wall but that's what charlotte claire likes to do he's on the edge of of that rear instability the whole time um but they obviously were pushing for performance they there's absolutely no hiding the fact that they were taking the fuel out and they were they were gunning for it but they they look good don't they they look good and also it was so good to see generally what formula one cars might look like pushed on the limit in quali sim but um but yeah i thought the ferrari car i love the fact that it's it's uh still on the nose it's it's lively they the power unit looks pretty different to everyone else they're not having to be super aggressive on the way into the corners in terms of the gear shifting um they're able to run a higher gear than than even the mercedes power unit cars by the end of the end of the test certainly than than the red bulls which allows for better drivability so probably you're less inconsistent with your with with what you're expecting on the way into the corners which allows you to run more front end and could be a more efficient way to run the car so long as you're recharging the battery um i i thought the ferrari power unit looked looked really good and i i tc i believe they will win races this year i don't know if they'll fight for the championship i hope they will but they'll certainly in that they're certainly in the mix

26:44Tom Clarkson:and lewis hamilton's making all the right noises as well saying you know this is more his kind of formula one car and you know it watching him drive it with so much confidence was was a positive for him look you talk about the drivability though of the power unit is that why it is so brilliant away from the line we saw a few practice starts each day at the second bahrain test and and the ferrari or anything ferrari powered actually you can include the has in that was was just brilliant

27:15Jolyon Palmer:yeah i think it's it's linked to the it's all linked in so they by all accounts have a smaller turbo in the in the power unit which means that it spools up much quicker and whilst the mercedes power cars are struggling to spool up the turbo so they're sitting on the grid for longer there's no mguh this year which did basically all of that work for you last year the one of the big changes the power units is that's gone so i don't think anyone quite expected the starts to be as difficult as they were early on uh but i think the ferrari it it fires up a lot quicker basically and it seems to be a lot more forgiving with the rev range where you look at the mercedes power units and the red bull as well getting off the line and there there's a knife edge between bogging down anti-stalling or you drop the clutch and they're just sitting there wheel spinning the ferrari looks like it's way more forgiving and i am i am looking forward to the start of melbourne because they are going to be so inconsistent uh but the the only thing you can say is the ferraris and the has cars were rocket ships off the line so even if they get out qualified by mercedes even if they start top five the smart money could be on lewis hamilton or charlotte claire leading into the first corner in melbourne it is that drastic oh you're making

28:37Tom Clarkson:me believe you're making me believe um i love the innovations that we saw on the ferrari as well whether it's the rotating rear wing whether it's the the aero vein you know by the exhaust this is Loic Serra's first car as technical director and for a team that is such a pressure cooker environment to be introducing these innovations suggests that it's a very healthy happy environment there because otherwise if there was a culture of fear and getting something wrong you wouldn't be doing that so I think Fred Vassertin principal has obviously done a brilliant job in encouraging people to do what they do and and don't be afraid come up with new stuff yeah they they've got

29:20Jolyon Palmer:actually really good previous of turning up to a new set of regs with interesting design and uh and performance when you look at the start of 2022 leclerc won the season opener was the early championship leader they had the really scalloped um side pods um they it was an it was an interesting different design area that that that they went down uh and the same with 2017 they they came to the fore as well this year i i don't know i felt like everyone in the paddock was kind of playing down this rear wing but i mean it it was it flipped upside down on the main straight i've never seen anything like it in my life tc do you think they'll race it so they ran it for one cheeky run at the start of day two in the in the test and they probably hoped that everyone would be still half asleep and they'd get away with it get it back in the garage and no one would spot it but that's not how f1 works anymore there are keen eyes everywhere and it was quickly picked up so now everyone knows what's going on but there are there are two things you you flip the wing upside down and this is all about the active aero so it's about effectively what used to be DRS opening up the slot gap and getting reduced drag and when you look at it surely it is reduced drag you're getting a bigger hole through the air by flipping the wing upside down and I believe that aspect will give them an advantage but then you have to wonder what what are the costs of that number one weight might be a factor when you maybe need to reinforce certain parts and add weight to the rear wing and uh the other thing is how quickly it shuts because i was speaking to to some of the drivers in the paddock and they were saying they actually have to manually close the active aero because if you just brake like you used to do with drs sometimes it has to be shut in 0.4 seconds according to the rules but sometimes it feels like it's not completely giving you the downforce on the initial break now if their rear wing is still upside down open you can imagine when they when they hammer on the brake they're going to be spinning around pretty hard into into all these braking zones so they're going to have to manually close it to make sure that it's there and these are the sort of trade-offs i i really hope that they run it for for one race at least at the start of the year and we can see because for me it would

31:45Tom Clarkson:go down as one of the great innovations so what of aston martin first time they've used honda power units yet the test was incredibly difficult for them they completed just six laps on the final day of testing Honda saying that it was due to a lack of spare parts how difficult is it just give

32:07Jolyon Palmer:us a flavor JP they're in a world of pain right now the problem is I don't think there's a single aspect of that car that's working the to start with honda are way behind the curve with the power unit they're not delivering the power and the the energy management is tough the reliability is also a bigger concern so you've got everything about the power unit not functioning as well as all their rivals uh the the reliability is a massive headache which we saw fully play out on the last day where they could only do six laps and absolutely nothing meaningful to put on the board and that means they're not finding anything in terms of the the chassis development as well so i was speaking to uh to iokomatsu at has and they had a really good test and i said how much of this this is actually before the last three days this was after barcelona and the first bahrain and he said we're doing really well the ferrari power unit is reliable so we've managed to run through we're working on all the the energy management stuff which was a huge part of it but we're now running through all of our front wing sweeps our roll roll balance stuff mechanical stiffness all of the usual stuff we're now running through to optimize the car and if you look at someone like aston martin they are so behind working out what setups to run on that car because they're so busy putting out files on other parts that it's no wonder they don't feel like they've downforce it's no wonder the car is really difficult to drive um the gearbox isn't is now made in-house which has also got got some some issues with it everywhere you look there is there

33:46Tom Clarkson:is uh there is problems going on there and no short-term fix either right no no this is this is

33:54Jolyon Palmer:long-term pain unfortunately for for the team i mean i guess when you when you talk about where they're coming from and and they will have the fastest rate of development because they're so far behind on the on the curve they've done the fewest laps by far of anyone barely turned up to barcelona really barely ran in in the last test in bahrain so pedro de la rosa was talking and saying every time we do a lap we're learning something but that in itself says that they are there is things that they are figuring out every lap new things that they're they're they're trying to fix but also things that they're discovering are going wrong so tough year really tough year

34:35Tom Clarkson:coming up for them i was chatting to pedro de la rosa myself and he was saying it's at moments like this that you really rely on the experience of adrian newey because let's not forget he knows an awful lot about power units as well as chassis and so while it looks the headlines look really bad he came straight into an engineering briefing and said right chassis wise do this honda pu wise do that he was just he totally took control according to pedro but these things have lead times and it's gonna take a long time to sort out let's hope though for you know alonso's 45 let's hope that second half of the year we can at least see the car making progress and well i think

35:24Jolyon Palmer:there's a there's a getting some cheeky points yeah and i think that could be an expectation there it's just where they wanted to be you know this is a team that want i think they knew that this was not going to be the easiest year of transition but they want to be fighting for championships they've built the super team of adrian newey of fernando alonso getting honda who in the last iteration of rules had the strongest power unit with Red Bull. So they've sort of put together a power team. They've done loads of work at the factory. And so far, nothing's working. But they have the ingredients there if everything's firing at some point in the future to be very good again.

36:03Jolyon Palmer:But it's just the lead time, as you say.

36:05Tom Clarkson:Well, JP, we're going to go into more detail in our season preview next week. Just final thoughts, really, on pre-season testing and particularly the new teams i think let's have a quick word on on cadillac

36:20Jolyon Palmer:and and audi as well i thought i was quite impressed with audi actually especially the progress they made in the last week i think they started the the they were the first car to hit the ground weren't they over the winter uh first car to fire up first car to get out for a shakedown but then they had quite a few issues in in barcelona but the way that that car was was developing i thought by the end of the test it looked pretty decent um the the drivability looks so much so much better the compliance of the car it sounds shrill when you're standing trackside you can hear the audi coming on coming up the straight a kilometer away compared to everyone else uh it also sounds really aggressive on the downshifts which is sort of unsettling the car but everything got better for them the sound didn't change but i quite like the raspy sound of the Audi.

37:10Jolyon Palmer:But yeah, in terms of the drivability got better and they are starting also from scratch, Audi with the power unit. So I thought they did a really good job and I think they'll be well in that midfield fight looking for some points. Cadillac, what did you think of Cadillac? As a new team rocking in, we haven't had a new team on the grid for a while. Phenomenal is what I thought.

37:35Tom Clarkson:You know, if they'd been having the issues that Aston Martin had been having, I would have said, well, you know, what do you expect? Such a complex set of regulations, brand new team, they'll get better. But no, they've come in, they've hit the ground running. They've had a few electronic issues, haven't they, along the way in the Bahrain test, but two experienced drivers just helping drive things along. I thought it seemed pretty serene and really good progress throughout pre-season testing.

38:06Jolyon Palmer:Yeah, I think they've given themselves a really solid baseline, haven't they? They're fully expecting to be at the back of the field. Whether Aston Martin would give them a chance to be off the back row, maybe, might be there now. But I don't think they've got the downforce on the car. They still had a few more technical hiccups rather than anything massive go wrong. But also when you look at the team, you look in the garage, and these guys are not inexperienced. They have hired well, I think, and that includes the drivers. But in terms of the technical department, the mechanics, they know how to run a Formula One car.

38:41Jolyon Palmer:So I'm expecting them to be respectable and then hopefully to also get back towards the rest of the midfield.

38:50Tom Clarkson:And they've got the Ferrari power unit. So if it is brilliant off the line, wherever they line up in Melbourne.

38:59Tom Clarkson:Well, JP, it's been wonderful to chat to you again. uh i'm really looking forward to this season of podcasts with you uh look final one for me as we get ready for melbourne what do you think is the pecking order can you give us a a rough idea

39:17Jolyon Palmer:so i i actually think i'm gonna i'm gonna hang my hat on this but when you when i've had years of the whole field being separated by about eight tenths there is a bigger gap now so there you can see a little bit more clearly the windows of which cars are performing mercedes v ferrari with a possible mclaren and red bull looking in is that vague enough to hang my hat on no but i

39:41Tom Clarkson:think that i think you've given us uh given us a lot there and um the big four is still the big

39:47Jolyon Palmer:four is that kind of what we're saying that's what we're saying but i think i think mercedes look happy i think ferrari uh your dark horses and who knows if verstappen uh or the mclarens can can be there and the midfield then there's a bit of a drop off to uh to a we haven't barely mentioned has but they were really strong and could well be the the front of the midfield alpine looking looking solid racing bulls also barely mentioned but looking solid as well well

40:14Tom Clarkson:lots to look forward to jp thank you very much for your time we will be back next week uh with our big season preview ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. A few things to let you know about before we go. You'll be able to watch F1 Nation on the F1 YouTube channel this year. So that's the place to go if you prefer to watch us. And finally, you may have heard our announcement last week that our F1 Explains podcast has a new home here on the F1 Nation feed. Presenter Christian Hugill will be joined by F1 correspondent Lawrence Barretta on their first show of the year this Friday, the 27th of February.

40:52Tom Clarkson:Lawrence will be answering your questions about the new cars and the new regulations, so do send those questions in to f1explains at f1.com. In the meantime, keep across all the latest Formula 1 news at f1.com, the official F1 app, or at F1 on social media. But thank you very much for listening, and we'll speak to you again next Monday.

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