Inside the Delusion Tour: How P1 With Matt and Tommy Turned Childhood Fandom Into a Global Community

November 13th, 2025. Toronto, Canada. 6:15pm.

In 45 minutes, Matt Gallagher and Tom Bellingham will walk onto the stage of the Danforth Music Hall for the fifth stop in the North American leg of The Delusion Tour, a live show spin-off of their incredibly successful Formula 1 podcast, P1 with Matt and Tommy.

“Me and Matt have had similar–even though we didn't know each other as kids–like a similar story of our F1 fandom,” says Bellingham. “This was like pre the explosion of Formula 1, with Drive Survive and everything, being the only kid at school that likes F1 and no one else likes it and you don't really have anyone to talk to about it.”

Gallagher nods in agreement. “We didn't have anyone to speak to about Formula 1, so, joking about Formula 1, having fun, people laughing and sort of sharing a collective experience is something that, you know, as a kid I never thought would even happen.”

Yet here they are, in the middle of their third tour overall, and the second one which has taken the duo far beyond their homebase in the UK. Fans have started trickling in after patiently lining up outside in the chilly Canadian air, ready to fill up the venue with laughter, exuberance, and a passion for two things: Formula 1, and the content that Gallagher and Bellingham have produced over the past three years.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of. 

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The start of something different - P1’s first live show

One of the key moments in realizing this dream came more than 2 years earlier, on April 6th, 2023: the very first P1 live show, held at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. 

“We were working in the podcast space before, but we'd never done any live stuff.  And it kind of got suggested, and the more we kind of thought about it, we thought that'd be quite cool,” says Bellingham on how the concept of a P1 live show originated.

The two look back on that night, and the nerves they were hit with right before their first performance for a live audience.

“My word, that first show is like–that is a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life, as soon as we walked out on stage, of being like the most nervous I've ever been in my entire life about anything, I think, because it was so unknown of how it was gonna go,” says Bellingham.

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“I was fine and then the last 15 minutes before we did the show, I just completely crumbled,” recalls Gallagher. “My mum asked me–cause she was obviously there before everyone got let in–she was like, ‘where am I sitting?’

“And I went, ‘I don't know.’

“And then after that, literal meltdown. I was like, Tommy, if I forget how to speak, can you please tell me how to do this, can you pick up for me? And it was utterly insane. 

“But then the minute we walked out, the barrage of noise that we heard was something, as Tommy said, I will never forget either because it was just something so, so special.”

Indeed, putting on a live show is a completely different experience for the two co-hosts, especially when compared to recording an episode of P1 with Matt and Tommy.

“As someone who listens to podcasts,” says Bellingham, “I know that like, you know, I'd find something funny and I'd laugh out loud or whatever. But obviously when we're recording, we don't know what hits or what lands and stuff. 

“And that was what's made like the experience so different is, as soon as we did our first show, it was like, oh my God, people are laughing at certain bits we do, which normally when we do a podcast, we'll just say a throwaway joke and then we have a little giggle between us and move on,” he explains.

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Fan interaction shapes every performance

It’s these moments of interaction between Gallagher, Bellingham and the fans that make a P1 live show what it is. And while it may have started out as just getting to hear their fans react to them in real time has evolved into a full-fledged back-and-forth with their audience that makes each night one of a kind. 

“I think as we've evolved, we've known how to kind of react to that and, like, ham it up even more I guess and get people involved,” says Bellingham.

Of course, there are some similarities between the podcast and the show. Both rely on “a skeleton of a script,” as Gallagher describes it; a rough outline of points to cover that serves to make sure they hit all their necessary beats as opposed to a word-for-word script.

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But where their podcast puts their thoughts at center stage, the live show brings a much bigger emphasis on fan involvement.

“It's sort of led by the fans in a lot of ways, you know,” says Gallagher. “It's getting questions, and then we just go down a particular route, and then we have people come up on stage and play some games, and again it can go many, many different ways. So, it's not massively different, but it is very different to watching a video of ours because it's an in-person experience.”

Indeed, watching the live show makes it all the more apparent. Gallagher and Bellingham devote roughly half of the night to interactions with the audience, with Gallagher spending as much time on stage as he does in the aisles of the venue they are performing at. 

“It's not the podcast, it's not a serious chat,” he says. “Yes, we have elements of the podcast within the show, but it's kind of going back to our values of, it's not just me and Tommy, it's a collective, like it's a community.”

And it is quite a diverse community that has developed over time, as they themselves have experienced on their second international tour.

“It's just a different kind of energy, right?” says Gallagher, on whether they’ve noticed anything that stands out about fans from different parts of the world. 

“You know, [in the UK] they're more polite, and they're just kind of like,” he gives a courteous but slightly toned down clap here, “or they will laugh, but just sort of keep it, you know, to themselves.

“Whereas, any show we've done in America or Canada, you know, they're standing up, they're whooping, and I think that's just that sports environment that's such a massive part of the culture here, and I love it. It's brilliant.”

Of course, like with any other sport, who the fans cheer for can also depend on location.

“It was an interesting difference of doing the shows when we did in the Netherlands though,” says Bellingham. “And normally when I'm like, who supports Max [Verstappen], it's a bit of like,” he half-heartedly cheers, “whereas in the Netherlands it was like about 90% of the people there were wearing Max Verstappen stuff, so I felt like I was the one that had the most support there.”

“We need to do a live show in Monaco, and then I'll have everyone on my side,” Gallagher quips jokingly, in reference to his well-known support for Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc.

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What The Delusion Tour reveals about F1 fans

But despite the differences in audience demeanors or favorite drivers, one thing stands out across all of the shows Gallagher and Bellingham have done.

“The perception of Formula 1 fandom on the internet is completely different to, like, the real world people,” says Bellingham. “And sometimes it can get a bit of a bad rep [for] the Formula 1 community. 

“But our live shows are like a proper case in point that that's not what the real world is like, and you just have fans of every single team, driver, they can all sit together and have a laugh and joke and stuff, which I think shows the good side of the sport.”

Through their podcast, the P1 duo has built a massive audience, surpassing 30 million total listens on audio platforms by September of 2025. Their live shows take that to the next level, creating an environment where that audience can come together and connect, not just with Gallagher and Bellingham, but with each other.

“I've heard many, many stories of people not having Formula 1 friends and coming along, buying a ticket and then speaking to like-minded people in a massive theater and in the lobby beforehand and things like that is such an awesome thing to hear, to be honest with you,” says Gallagher.

Bellingham adds, “For me to see people that were like, you know, my age then when I had no one to talk to that's making friends, or even older, be able to like come to a show, and they love Formula 1 as much as we do, and they feel comfortable enough to be like, oh I'll go on my own and I'll make friends; we've seen people that have met at a P1 live show and then like done the P1 live show together or go to Silverstone together like afterwards, which is really cool.”

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Indeed, from talking about F1 several times a week on the P1 podcast to standing in front of thousands of fans across the world, Gallagher and Bellingham have tirelessly worked to grow their community and create this experience for them.

And where do they see that experience going next?

“Well, we're going to Australia next year, which I'm very excited for,” Gallagher says. “The show has sold an insane amount of tickets and, and more than I ever– we literally had to add shows, which is something that I didn't even think was possible for somewhere so far away from where we live. 

“Where would we go apart from that? I know we have a lot of fans in India, which a lot of people messaged saying they'd like us to do a show there.”

“We were at Zandvoort,” Bellingham recalls, “and we were in the paddock and someone, some Japanese photographer got a photo of us and was like, you've got a lot of fans in Japan. 

“And I was like, firstly I was like, no we don't. 

“And two, I was like, wow, we're gonna have to do a live show because that's my favorite country in the world.”

But regardless of where they take their show next, one thing is no delusion: through their podcast and live shows, the P1 pair are helping cultivate the pinnacle of motorsport communities and the F1 fan culture that they so longed for when they were kids themselves.