Radio check, Steve. Radio check.

He should be in mode F-lap, no?

I'm used to a bit of a countdown, you know, every couple of minutes.

To fire up or to formation lap start?

Nico, that drop was plus two hot target, plus two.

And there will be three burnouts. Three burnouts.

And we'll be in mode RS.

Fuck, almost lost the car there in turn 3. Yeah, it was a good save. Let's refocus.

And we suggest entry plus one and mid eight.

We need to kind of reconsider now. Should I save a lot of tyre now? What do you think? Yeah, Nico, we'll let you know. For info, Gabi boxed for hard. Gabi boxed for hard.

And you can go SOC 6, SOC 6.

Nico, we will take a few laps to learn about the hard tyre with the other car. Copy.

We won't be doing much from here, so just save those tyres as much as I can now. Yeah, makes sense.

And that was Alonso. Alonso is retiring.

And consider special three for turn one. Special three.

And Nico, some competitors are already starting to green the front left. Ours looks clean for the moment. Yeah, it's clean. I'm really holding back here. I think we've got to do something aggressive and extreme.

And keep special three until after turn three. Keep special three until after turn three.

And Nico, the others are struggling, starting to talk about pitting already. You're doing a very good job with tyres. Copy.

Can we suggest B-Meg 3? B-Meg 3?

How is the balance, Nico? It's understeer at high speed. Especially 13 on power that bit. 8 and 9 as well. It's quite fragile, the front tyre. But I'm not sure, it's just a matter of lap.

Yeah, Nico, we might have picked up some damage at the beginning. Might be missing some front and right handers.

Yeah, that makes sense because it just feels pretty poor. If I push more, I'm just going to really use up the tyre.

And Gasly is in the pitlane. Gasly in the pitlane. Let's go state position 10. State 10.

So we have Gasly 11 seconds behind on new hard. What do you think about plan A plus five, plan A plus five?

Yep, copy that. I think we need to invent actually a new plan. Or one we didn't talk about. Let's see.

Tsunoda, Ocon and Doohan in the pitlane.

And all these guys behind you are putting new heart.

First is Tsunoda. Seven seconds.

Do you think you can do 10 more laps on these tyres, 10 more? I think I don't have much of a choice. Yeah, copy that, Nico.

How are the hard tyres looking for Gabi?

And Gabby's done 11 laps on the hard compounds. They are clean and deg is very low. Verstappen coming out of the pitlane now.

And Nico, three seconds behind you is a very close pack of five cars. And obviously you are racing all of them, but let's go for the strategy.

Yeah, I don't have much to, you know, fight here anymore. So I don't know. Maybe race time-wise better to get out of the way. Let's not make it easy for them.

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And Nico, we think a few other cars might try to one-stop.

And you can avoid special two. Avoid special two.

Who are these guys? This is that pack of guys that have stopped already on Newhart.

Yeah, I was more looking for names. So first car is Tsunoda, then Ocon, Antonelli, Hadjar.

And we are targeting another six laps. Mind your tyres.

And the next cars are Antonelli, Hadjar and Gasly.

And car behind now is Doohan.

Am I really dying now here? I don't know.

Yeah, copy that, Nico. The hard tyre looks quite good, so we'll move our target lap down. We'll be two more laps after this one. Two more.

Well, think about braking a bit earlier, please. OK, understood. And my plan was to do plus half a percent aerobalance, plus half a percent. OK. John shows me from the other car. Not sure what they did. And Nico, we will box at the end of this lap.

And the other car is saying balance is quite good, quite consistent. They only did plus two down, but I want to compensate for our damage.

And box. No objection.

And let's go for a very easy introduction on these hearts.

So we'll be 36 laps in total. 36 laps.

And car in front is Gabi. 12 seconds. His lap times are 39.7.

And eight seconds in front of Gabby is Lawson. He's on a reverse strategy. He's on the medium now.

And Nico, we suggest a small amount of lift in coast.

Nico, we think we can push more in 7, 8, 9 and 10.

And let's increase lift and coast into 14 and 6.

And that's Gabi in the pitlane.

So car in front, Bearman is on a new medium. He's 19 seconds in front.

B-Bal offset plus one hundred. B-Bal offset plus one hundred.

B-Bal offset plus one hundred.

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No transcript available

Nico, we need 40 meters more lift and coast into 14 and 6, 40 meters in each corner.

Nico, your pace and deg is very good at the moment. Keep it up.

And some lift and coast into 11.

Well, you realise pace a little bit, but that kicks in at the fuel consumption. Is this fuel or for deck? This is for fuel and eco.

And car behind is Lawson on new hard. That's his second stop.

And Nico, for info, Stroll started the race on hard and he's still going on that start set. He just went green. His lap time is 38 to 1.

So, Nico, you are matching the lap times of Albon. He's on the same strategy as you.

What lap did he pit?

Same lap as us. Same lap as us.

Nico, we need to increase lift and coast into 6, 11 and 14. That approach seems to be working quite well. More competitive than Albin there.

Even more fuel or it's starting to be a bit extreme? Yeah, Nico, this is for fuel.

Nico, we need driver default delta zero zero on. Delta zero zero on.

Nico, we need one more second total lift and coast.

Jesus, what's going on? So somebody is way out there. Yeah, we didn't expect to be in free air.

Nico, I know this is a difficult situation to manage, but your pace is not bad compared to the guy that's on the same strategy. OK. Thanks.

And this level of liftoff is okay until the end.

And Gabi is the car behind. 3.7 seconds.

Multi B12, position 5. Multi B12, position 5, please.

And 15 laps to go. 15.

And we were over the limits on the front right in turn 7.

And another half a second of liftoff, please, Nico.

Let's go entry minus one.

How much newer are Gabi's tyres? They are six laps newer. Six laps.

Multi B3, position 3. Multi B3, position 3.

What kind of damage are we actually looking at?

And it's around 20 points in high speed and more like 40 points in low speed. That works well. But I guess it's homemade from my little off. Yeah, it must have happened in the first lap.

And Tsunoda is in the pitlane. He'll come out behind you. Car behind is Piastri. Five seconds. He's the race leader.

And Piastri two and a half behind. I think we can start to remove lift and coast.

And that's blue flags to Piastri. Let's let him by.

And behind him, three seconds is Norris.

And six laps to go now, Nico. Car behind is Russell. Six seconds.

Multi B3, position one. Multi B3, position one.

And driver default Bravo 22 on. Bravo 22 on.

And three laps to go, Nico. Blue flags to Russell, behind.

And we suggest B-Meg 4 and brake balance minus one percent.

Yeah, thanks. No thanks.

Two laps to go.

Car behind is Verstappen.

And last lap, Nico. Car behind is Verstappen and then five seconds back is Leclerc.

And that's the chequered flag, Nico.

Mode end, please. Mode end.

And reminder to pick up, please.

Yeah, a really difficult one.

So we finished P18. Tsunoda ended up stopping again for medium and finished behind us. And Alonso retired. And Gabi's the car in front in P17.

And most of the field one-stopped in the end. All right, okay. Yeah, I think, obviously, with that kind of damage, it's pretty serious. Yeah, sorry about that, lap one. Need to look into what happened, but... Yeah, exactly. Obviously, very aggressively lost the rear end. That was basically the end. Yeah, it looks like a very tricky balance in the opening lap.

Just, I don't know, I got very surprised with that snap. I didn't see that coming.

We got to see the highs and the lows of the sport together in our first two races.

And reminder, full switch off, please, Nico.