Testing Day 3: What's the pecking order heading to Australia - and are Red Bull in trouble? (ad-free)
Added 2025-02-28 22:23:48 +0000 UTCF1 the final day of F1 pre-season testing complete, Edd Straw is joined by Jon Noble and Scott Mitchell-Malm to assess every team's performance and rank where each sits in the pecking order heading into the first race of the season in Australia.
Amongst the topics discussed are whether Williams or Alpine will head the midfield, whether Red Bull are in trouble after a more difficult than expected test, and whether McLaren are really as far ahead of the rest as some in the paddock would have you think.
Mark Hughes also returns for a deep dive analysis of the top four teams' times.
Comments
Really enjoyable pod to wrap up the 3 days of testing. As someone who's had the privilege of working in the media to cover sport, I can empathise/relate to just how long those 8.30 to 10.30 pm days can feel like. Thanks for the great reporting, but also for the enthusiastic bite-sized video recaps you shared on Patreon. 🙏🏽
Michael Holden
2025-03-02 07:15:11 +0000 UTCGiven the field spread is very tight, the midfield is so variable that it's difficult to declare anyone except a backmarker - the exception probably being Sauber. For example, if there were a qualifying session tomorrow, we'd expect Alpine and Williams to be fighting for the final couple of Q3 positions, but it wouldn't be a massive surprise to see Racing Bulls, Haas and maybe even Aston Martin getting into the mix. So while there will be weekends where you could point to a backmarker group, overall there's a group of five (and if Sauber can sharpen up, six) cars that will over the course of the season be vying to be fifth/sixth best team. So you're absolutely right that it seems odd to talk about a front group and a midfield group but not refer to a backmarker group, but if there isn't a real, identifiable few teams that could make that up (the great example being when the new teams came in back in 2010 and had effectively their own class), it isn't a very helpful way to classify it.
Edd Straw
2025-03-01 08:26:52 +0000 UTCWhy are we referring to the slowest 4 teams as being midfield teams? There’s literally no one slower so they must be back markers by definition.
Nicholas Langdon
2025-03-01 07:14:47 +0000 UTCHow can there be too much of you? How can there be too much of the best F1 covering outlet? We enjoyed very much all your testing coverage.
Andrés Bastanchuri
2025-03-01 01:37:13 +0000 UTCThanks for 3 days of awesome coverage guys😀😀
Troy Foote
2025-02-28 23:51:35 +0000 UTC
