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Australian Grand Prix 2025: pre-qualifying

Just before the first race is one of the most exciting times as a follower of F1 but also one of the most difficult as someone who bets on the sport. Even with a couple of practice sessions, sandbagging is eminently possible. The first practice session of the year saw Norris top the time sheet, a tenth and a half up on Sainz (who appears to have forgotten he isn’t in a frontrunning team this year…). Leclerc was half a tenth behind his former team mate but two-tenths up on Piastri. The Aussie was just a few hundredths up on Verstappen, Albon, Russell, and Alonso. Hadjar was a tenth further back, and two-tenths ahead of Stroll. First practice had a red flag brought out by Bearman, one of the rookies with a few races under his belt. His Haas was roughly introduced to a concrete wall, which meant he didn’t run in FP2 at all. Tsunoda being behind his team mate and Gasly being 17th to Doohan’s 13th were little surprises. FP2 had Leclerc as fastest, a tenth ahead of Piastri and Norris (who...
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F1 2025 Australian Grand Prix Preview and Predictions (Undercutters Ep11 transcript)

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Hello everyone, and welcome to the 11th Undercutters podcast. I’m your host, Morris, and we’re finally just a few days away from the start of the F1 2025 season. The Australian Grand Prix, the first F1 race of the season, is right around the corner. As always, if you want to get in touch you can leave me a comment on morrisf1.blogspot.com, which is where I post episode transcripts, or on Twitter where I’m MorrisF1. For those who prefer Blue Sky, I created an account there too, also under the name MorrisF1. Incidentally, the Formula 1 Grand Prix schedule is crammed at the start of this F1 season, with five Grands Prix in the first six weekends. The week after Australia we have China, and then there’s one week off in the Formula 1 schedule. This is followed by a triple header of Japan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. So any team that starts poorly will have very little time to turn things around in the initial run of F1 races, and any team starting well could rack up a lot of points very qu...
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F1 Testing 2025 (Undercutters Ep10 transcript)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 10th episode of the Undercutters podcast. This is the last pre-season episode for the F1 2025 season and the first time we’ll be looking at how the Formula 1 cars for this year stack up. How Useful is Testing? 0m 15s Testing’s interesting for comparing the new cars and perhaps sizing up new drivers too. But its accuracy in predicting pace has declined a lot from days gone by. In 2009, Button and Barrichello were driving for Brawn and were fantastically quick in testing. This was an accurate form guide, as Brawn dominated the early races. However, there was less scope for sandbagging back then. Fuel tanks were a lot smaller as this was during the refuelling era, which meant you could neither run on fumes nor fully fuel to significantly alter the headline lap time. Similarly, the Bridgestone tyres of the day did not really degrade, so it wasn’t like today with the wide range of Pirellis that can lose performance over time. Engine modes were less sophis...
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Will the 2025 Formula 1 Season Live up to the Hype? (Undercutters Ep9 transcript)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Undercutters podcast. I’m your host, Morris. This is the last episode before testing begins. Testing runs from the 26th to the 28th of February, after which the Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the F1 2025 season, takes place on the 16th of March. Why the F1 2024 Season was Great, and how it Ended 00m:22s Formula 1 can have processional seasons, famously during the Schumacher era, then when Hamilton reigned supreme and, most recently, the 2023 season which was totally dominated by Verstappen and Red Bull. However, the F1 2024 season was one of the most competitive in history, with seven drivers winning multiple races and four teams achieving 1-2 finishes. After an initial period of Red Bull dominance, each weekend saw a chance for different top teams to win, and this kept each race exciting right to the end. While Verstappen did retain his title, the constructors’ battle went to the very last race and Norris secured McLaren their first title ...
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