Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2026 Mexico Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen and enjoy the show.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: By being a racing driver, you are at the risk all the time.
By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people.
And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: All right, boys. Well, it's finally been decided at the 2026 Mexico Grand Prix. Kimmy Antonelli is officially the 2026 F1 drivers world champion and the youngest champion by like three years. And I don't know if you saw the coverage that they did a bit during the weekend, but they were talking about like the age gaps of this particular record that had. It's been broken. It's been just like a couple months. I think it was like Lewis and then Seb took it and Max had missed it by a couple months. But now it's a three year blowout of crazy and it seems like it's. I mean I can't imagine it being beaten very soon.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: No.
As a father to a 16 year old boy, I can't believe that somebody who's only 19 can achieve such a thing at such a young age. It's not even like he's in his rookie year. He's got, it's in his second year.
Unbelievable how young he still is.
[00:01:31] Speaker D: I think at 16 he was, he, he'd won fre, right the Formula Regional Europe and was about to go into F2 and he was probably not that far off.
I think he was just 17 actually. He was probably. Was he even 17 when Lewis, when Lewis announced that he was going to be leaving for Ferrari?
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Really?
[00:01:58] Speaker D: Okay, so let's just say he was 17, but I know he had to wait until he was 18 before he could.
Right, so
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Lewis had the whole year. Right. So once he ended.
[00:02:10] Speaker D: Yeah. So essentially it's what, two and a half years ago? So he was, he's just turned 20, so he's probably a.
It's nuts, isn't it, to think that he was that young. But you know, you look at, you know, Luis, Fernando, Seb, they weren't even in F1 at 20 years old.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: The
[00:02:30] Speaker D: only one who's really been apart from Lance Stroll, who was very young at the time when he came in. But we don't talk about him on this podcast in any favorable times anyway.
But he was very young, so well done him.
But the only other youngster and the reason why all this super licensed stuff came in Was because of Max. And Max came in at 17, but he was not in race winning equipment for the first time a couple of years. And then Obviously he was 24, 23, 24 when he won his first title. And you kind of look at it. Kimmy's gone into season two at this age into winning machinery, and it's Mercedes. You don't. Obviously they didn't do too well in the last rule cycle, but there's the opportunity for him to be like, to every record.
You know, obviously Max is still only, what, 28 maybe? I don't know exactly. But, you know, he. So he's still got a good few years. So it really could be Kimmy versus Max for the next few years. You look at how Red Bull's come on in the last half of the season, Mercedes have got a really strong car. I mean, next year has all the makings of something special. But, you know, Max has always said, well, we'll see how it goes in a couple of years. I've kind of done all of this and maybe I'll swan off into the sunset, which would just basically leave everything for Kimmy. He could win. He could win 100 races plus. Right.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: Poor old George Russell
[00:04:06] Speaker A: listening. Yeah,
[00:04:07] Speaker C: I was gonna say, George Russell listening to this opening, opening monologue by you, you're
[00:04:12] Speaker A: like, hello, this
[00:04:13] Speaker C: is supposed to be my year.
[00:04:16] Speaker D: Yeah.
I mean, but George is an old man now. He's 28 as well, probably. Right. So,
[00:04:23] Speaker C: I mean, he just couldn't. He. He just can't hang with Kimmy in the same equipment, can he? Like, he just can't do what Kimmy has been able to do in that car this season.
Yeah. Once. Once the other teams caught up with their speed, Kimmy was still around about the front, and George has just been back in sixth, seventh spot, it seems, all year.
[00:04:47] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, here I am talking about how Kimi could win 100 races.
To your point, he does have a very good teammate. I don't quite understand, and I don't think he even understands quite what he couldn't get to grips with this year. But last year, yes, Lando won the title. It was between him and Oscar. And yes, Max came on strong. But for me, George was probably the class of the field last year just in terms of what the. What results he was getting in the equipment that he had.
So he has it. He just can't get to grips with it because the weekends he's been fast. He's been fast, but he doesn't know why he was fast. Which is the problem.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker D: And he doesn't know why he's slow when he's slow, which is the problem.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. I think you're right. Next season, I mean, if there's a continuation depending on, you know, what the teams come up with over the winter months. But it does have all the makings. I mean, you'd have to say that Max has the better results. Right. Over the last few weeks, he's the one who's winning races even though we're focused on Kimmy because he's just doing what he needs to do to.
To win the championship. Maybe Kimmy could put more pressure on Max. Maybe he's not pushing as hard as he. As he needs to just to get those points because of his world championship position. But, you know, Ferrari is still.
They look like
[00:06:09] Speaker A: the
[00:06:09] Speaker C: best
[00:06:09] Speaker A: car.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: They're not quite. It does.
I mean,
[00:06:15] Speaker D: if you stay on Max for. If you just stay on Max for a while before we go over to Ferrari, you know, six months ago we were talking actually probably less than that. Let's. What was it? Probably May, June. So what's that? How many is that, like three, four months ago we were saying, is Max gonna just drop out? Is he just going to say, forget it, I'm not doing it? Is he going to go somewhere else? Is he going to take a year off? Since he put pen to paper, I think he's outscored Kimmy by like 10 points.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: Right?
Yeah. He's got, He's. He's still that winning. Winning cures everything. Right. And, you know, he's back to winning ways, so he must be feeling good about next year.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: And hedgehogs got worse and worse and worse since then.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I mean, nobody's gonna.
That. That's one thing that Red Bull have got sorted out. There's no question about the team orders there. Even if they were close together, you know, who, who, who gets in front of who.
But yeah, I mean, ton. I could. Could.
Could it be a fight between four or five different people for the title? I don't know. All four of those guys could.
Well,
[00:07:27] Speaker D: it's not a case of guys. It's a case of cars. Right. I mean, I have to, you know, George has to do better next year. Right. And that's not a case of saying, oh, he needs to do better. He himself is like, this was his season.
You know, obviously Kimmy, last year he had some good results, but he had that whole European stretch where he, you know, he. He got his.
He got chewed out by Toto after, I think Monza or so saying you've got to do better, right. Publicly, you got to do better. Right. And he's obviously done better.
So. But in the context of last year, everyone, you know, coming into this season, George was the clear odds on favorite to win the title.
And so he hopefully can get a bit of momentum coming into the rest of this season. But he just needs the season to just get himself back together and do a lot of work and not take much vacation, just get straight back into it and start figuring out what it is that he couldn't understand without the pressure of having to perform on race weekends and then come into next year and give it another crack. He's a good driver. It's just that this season didn't go his way and he needs to pick himself up, dust himself off and try again.
So I'd like to think that, you know, he hasn't worked his entire life to just give up now having been beaten by Kimi Antonelli. Yeah, Kimmy's got a great talent, but George knows that he's got the talent too. He's just going to prove it. And so I'd hope to have both guys in the Mercedes battling for it next year. Ferrari have got a great car and they just need their engine to be upgraded a bit and, you know, we'll come on to them in a bit. But, you know, you've got, you've got Charles Clair and Lewis Hamilton, who you've go both got to believe would be pushing for it next year, and then you've got Red Bull with Max. So that's clearly three teams, five guys.
But McLaren have shown that when they can hook it up, when they can get their stuff together and put out some decent upgrades, that they get results. They've kind of gone backwards a bit since Fanfo, but you got to think that they'll do it. You know, they can't be ruled out of the conversation. So you've really got eight. Seven drivers out of eight. Just Hajar isn't going to be given the shot who could be battling for the title next year.
[00:10:01] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:10:02] Speaker A: yeah,
[00:10:02] Speaker C: it's.
It's crazy to think, but it's hard to disagree with you.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:10:07] Speaker C: you have to see where the, where it will fall. I mean, it seems it's been so inevitable for Kimmy to win just because of what he did early on in the season, you know, by, by winning all those races and putting that distance between him and everybody else that, you know, the fact that the. It's a four Way is a solid four way fight still for second spot right now. I was just looking at the standings. It's only
[00:10:29] Speaker A: close.
[00:10:30] Speaker C: Yeah, what 261 for Verstappen, who's. He's two points ahead of Hamilton, who's nine points ahead of Russell, who's five points ahead of Leclerc. I mean Russell down in fourth is kind of crazy too now that his teammates just won. But yeah, if those guys could all be right at the top fighting out. Piastri is definitely adrift. He's what, 80 points behind Norris.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:10:57] Speaker C: know Norris got those two wins of course. But
[00:11:01] Speaker A: it would be hard to put Oscar in that conversation with the way
[00:11:04] Speaker C: that
[00:11:04] Speaker A: he has been driving, unfortunately, because he looks so good last year. But
[00:11:10] Speaker D: yeah, I mean
[00:11:10] Speaker C: these
[00:11:11] Speaker D: cars are just fundamentally so different to drive and very different characteristics to the ground effect cars.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: You
[00:11:17] Speaker D: know, you look at Lewis, Lewis, as soon as the ground effect went away, he's been better than Charles who has been the benchmark for Ferrari for the last however long he's been at Ferrari. Right. So, um, it's just a very different beast to drive. And you know, George and Oscar are the two clear guys who just haven't got to grip with this, this type of car yet.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Yeah, they've been consistently outperformed by their, their teammate. Yeah.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, I guess we should talk a little bit. There were some moments in the race, the, the race itself.
Obviously we've spoken about the troubles with Ferrari and a lot of it has just been them battling each other in many races and taking themselves out. And that seemed to be the case in this one from the jump. And it kind of just gave Max the lead from the beginning and that was that.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: He never, he never looked back. I mean it was took.
What was the. It was Hamilton on pole, Verstappen second, leclair third. But Hamilton and leclerc were on sort of the clean side of the track. So Russell second, Russell
[00:12:29] Speaker D: second, Russell was second. And here's the moment where we have to talk about the incident between Lawson and Verstappen in practice because that had a clear bearing on what happened in the race because max qualified in fourth, but because of the penalty he got dropped one spot onto the clean side of the track.
Wow.
[00:12:57] Speaker C: 4D chess right there.
[00:12:59] Speaker D: If he'd have started fourth, I mean, who ended up starting fourth? I forget who started fourth, but they went backwards in a hurry and the guys on the clean side went through. So yeah, so there you go.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: It was, I mean it was a solid start. By everybody, including Russell. What? Hamilton sort of cut across Russell. Leclerc tucked in behind around the first couple of corners, but then leclerc just got a good drive and got himself up behind Hamilton for the chicane and he just sort of, from too far back, just threw it in. He shouldn't be fighting. I have to agree with Hamilton. He shouldn't be fighting his teammate for the lead.
Three corners into the Grand Prix, you know, with the whole race to go, when you got, you know, 1, 2
[00:13:49] Speaker D: from
[00:13:49] Speaker C: that far
[00:13:50] Speaker D: back.
Yeah. This race in Mexico, it's the longest run down to the first corner. I don't know. I. I haven't looked at stats, but I do like off, you know, in the corner of my mind, think that how often the pole sit has actually been not leading after the first corner on this circuit because the slipstream is worth so much. So, you know, I was keen to see if Lewis would even lead into the first corner or if he would get overtaken into the first corner, particularly for a max. But he was a couple of, you know, he was starting fifth, but certainly for Charles. Right. So they got through that first 1, 2, 3.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:32] Speaker D: And then they did.
There's just no rules of engagement. They've talked about it before, and it's not that there needs to be a number one and a number two, but they're quite fundamentally needs to be a, very clear A, yeah, don't crash into your teammate, but B, things like if you're in 1, 2 after the first corner, stay 1, 2 until you can build enough lead over the guy in third, get him out of overtake, and then you can have a few goes. But, right, you can't take yourselves out of a 1, 2.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Exactly. 100%. You got to work. You got to work. You have to work as a team. You know, we're not supposed to have team orders and all that kind of stuff. Well, but you got to work together. And, yeah, Charles just went in way too deep. He had no shot at making that corner. Pushed Hamilton offline, which gave Verstappen. At that point, Verstappen had made his way up and got the drive into that spot. So Charlotte couldn't even give the place back because, you know, it was Verstappen behind him. What would you have to do? You know, I don't know.
[00:15:38] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it's.
In the driver's briefing, they said if you.
If you. In the opening sequence, I think they only actually called out 1 and 3, but it basically is through the opening sequence of Corners. If you retain your position by going off track, you will deemed to be have gained an advantage.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: Right,
[00:16:00] Speaker D: so they went through that.
LeClaire went off track. It was reduced from a 10 second to a five second because Lewis also went off track because Lewis was waiting for Charles to break before he braked. He sees him.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: Yeah, they both. Yeah, they both went way too deep. Yeah,
[00:16:16] Speaker D: they both went to outbreak each other and outbreaked everyone. Right. So they both went off track.
That was, that gave obviously Verstappen the chance to go through like you said. So if even if Lewis had retained his position, he'd have probably had to give it up to Max anyway. Right.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:16:37] Speaker D: Maybe Charles is two spots ahead and he did the right. And at that point onwards he did the right thing.
Knowing that Lewis went off the track as well. He knew he was only going to get a five second penalty so he had to go and build a five second lead before the pit stop.
He kind of got just about that.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: Almost did, but yeah, not quite.
[00:16:59] Speaker D: But not quite enough. And as soon as he went in they were always going to pit Max straight after him and they did and Max got out ahead. So because a 5 second can't touch the car really is an extra 6 or so seconds on the pit stop because it's that reaction time and the buffer so that you don't mess it up and have to do it again.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a very good point. Yeah. You almost would just take the five seconds at the end of the race. So it's exactly five. That's the best case scenario.
Having to manage it yourself. Yeah, it just takes one guy to jump too early and touch the car and it's whole things are invalidated. Right,
[00:17:36] Speaker A: but that's why it's mandatory to take that penalty on the pit stop. Right. You're not, you're not allowed to keep it like skip it.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Speaker D: If you pit and don't and don't do the five seconds then you get ten seconds.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Right?
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Yeah, they just keep adding them on. But yeah, I mean what Hamilton just came on the radio and just started.
I mean effectively blasting the team. I mean as much as you can from the cockpit, you know. What did we talk about before? We got big problems here, guys.
He was.
[00:18:08] Speaker D: Yeah, but I think, I think he was actually talking about when he said the driver's briefing. He was actually talking about the, the driver's briefing, not the internal Ferrari briefing.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:18] Speaker C: All right. Okay.
[00:18:19] Speaker D: If you didn't give up your position by going off track then you would be getting A penalty. That's what he
[00:18:27] Speaker A: was.
[00:18:27] Speaker D: I think that's
[00:18:28] Speaker A: what he was talking. Second penalty. Yeah. Yeah.
Because I think he started complaining once the penalty came down and it was only a 5 second and that's what Max was saying too.
[00:18:38] Speaker D: Well, because Lewis got a 10 second penalty. Where was that for doing that same thing?
[00:18:44] Speaker A: I can't remember.
[00:18:45] Speaker D: Yeah,
[00:18:45] Speaker C: he said, Lewis said something like the Stewards, the Stewards have just handed this, you know, he said handed it to leclerc, I think. But maybe he thought that he should have got a 10 second and only got a five. I don't know.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think they only gave him a five because that, like you said, they both went off track and they both gained advantage. So,
[00:19:06] Speaker C: yeah, Hamilton, much less so. I mean Hamilton still got back on and made the apex of the second part of the corner complex.
[00:19:16] Speaker D: But from the, from the angle
[00:19:17] Speaker C: when they
[00:19:18] Speaker D: showed it, when it happened in real time because Lewis had gone off and he was, you know, to your point, hard left to make the apex of the next corner.
To me it looked like he was about to spin out.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:19:33] Speaker D: the angle of it, I was like, oh man. He, I thought, because obviously he started on the front, I thought he was going straight to the back. But he managed to hold it and get round there and stay.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: He had no momentum, no speed in the car at all. So Verstappen just gobbled him up.
And what happened to Russell? How did he end up so far back and ended up tagging Hajar from. I know he started second on the dirty side, but was he just early on the brakes on a couple of corners. I mean, these guys just went by and
[00:20:04] Speaker D: I
[00:20:04] Speaker C: think
[00:20:04] Speaker D: it might have been. I know he's been having, they've been having trouble with his state of charge off the line.
[00:20:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:11] Speaker D: I didn't, I didn't actually see why he was down that far, but yes, he was on the dirty side, but that's a long way back.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: It's a long way back, right? Yeah. So then on that same corner he ends up tagging Hajar, who's Hadjar's well ahead of Russell by that point, spins him out and picks up his own 10 second penalty.
[00:20:31] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I, it's. Although it's still the first lap of the race and everyone's close together, so I'm,
[00:20:38] Speaker A: you know.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Where's the whole like racing. Racing incident?
[00:20:42] Speaker D: Yeah, it was a, it was clumsy, but it's like. Was it worth 10 seconds if you ask Hajar? Yes, but it wasn't egregious
[00:20:52] Speaker C: yeah,
[00:20:52] Speaker A: yeah,
[00:20:53] Speaker C: yeah,
[00:20:53] Speaker D: but he should have, he should have bailed out. But the thing is though, when you're in that situation you can't like hit the brake because someone's going to go into the back of you. So how do you give up space when everyone's so close together? I don't know, I don't know what the stewards expect, but it did seem a little harsh for a 10 second to me.
[00:21:10] Speaker C: But then it was just pretty much as you were until, I don't know which lap did Bottas's suspension break and
[00:21:21] Speaker A: he
[00:21:21] Speaker C: went off 24, 27, something like that. Yeah, nothing, nothing really happened as they circulated.
I mean that looked pretty nasty from Bottas. Right? You're going full tilt down and the front wheel just, front suspension just snaps.
[00:21:39] Speaker D: Yeah. Did something similar happen to Checo? Maybe not quite as emphatic as that one, but maybe you're thinking of the Sebastian Buemi one.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: I'm thinking of that one where both wheels went simultaneously. Yeah,
[00:21:52] Speaker D: that was mental,
[00:21:53] Speaker C: that one's, that's absolutely mental. Yeah, both wheels went simultaneously flying off the front of his car in opposite directions.
[00:22:02] Speaker D: Obviously safety, you know, safety's obviously made that tethered a lot, a lot more so it didn't fly off, but it was, it was, he was a passenger at that point. I think the only other time I've seen it was when Kimi Raikkonen was winning a race maybe in Germany in like 2004, five, when they didn't, when they went, do you remember that era when they didn't change tires, they just went on one set of tires for the whole race? Yeah, yeah, back 20 years ago. And so he got a massive flat spot on his tires and he was like maybe a lap or two from winning the race and his front, front left probably suspension gave up and he was out of the race.
[00:22:43] Speaker C: Was that those, was that those grooved tires or is that.
[00:22:46] Speaker D: Yeah, they were still on groove tires at that point.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, seems like a long time, it was a long time ago, but yeah, I mean, glad that Bottas was okay. You know, in the end the crash barrier and the car and everything, you know, worked its magic. He was in, he was sitting in the car for a while, which was a bit scary, but they ended up, and ultimately brought out the red flag. Could have been a safety car, but because he had, because he
[00:23:12] Speaker A: hadn't briefly
[00:23:12] Speaker C: moved, it was a safety car. And Hamilton decided to duck into the pits, right, to do a pit stop,
[00:23:20] Speaker A: which,
[00:23:21] Speaker C: which put him back and then when they red flagged, Hamilton was behind Kimmy, Right. Because of that pit stop.
But then during the red flag, they decided to adjust the order, which nobody could
[00:23:33] Speaker D: technically
[00:23:34] Speaker C: work out
[00:23:34] Speaker D: the lap because he got to the order at the start of the lap.
[00:23:39] Speaker C: But what? I don't know. They seem
[00:23:40] Speaker D: switched.
[00:23:40] Speaker C: They seem to think they were on a better. Yeah, but.
[00:23:43] Speaker D: Yeah, but then, because I think Kimmy had only stopped, so
[00:23:48] Speaker C: he didn't stop
[00:23:48] Speaker D: once, literally just before. So he actually had a 14 lap offset from the rest of the field. So he was actually sitting in a really good position for the rest of the race. Potentially he could have won the race if it hadn't been red flagged because he had so much newer tires than everyone else.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: If he'd have stayed out another lap and then it got red flagged without pit, he would have been in. He was in the lead right before he pit stopped. So he would have just got a free, like a literally free pit stop. Because you
[00:24:18] Speaker D: could change
[00:24:18] Speaker C: tires under red flag.
[00:24:20] Speaker D: I know that you're not at your laptop, Martin, because you're normally Mr. Tyre Man. So you know which tires.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:25] Speaker D: What? But I don't know which tire which tire do you know did Kimmy start on, then change onto on his pit stop and then change onto after the red flag? Is there a.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Tires are so hard to keep track of this
[00:24:38] Speaker D: because if you're on the medium tire, right, you're on the medium tire. You go long, you put the soft on.
You could then be running out of life of tires at the end, but then you put the soft on, so then you red flag. Can you then put a new set of mediums on, which is a much better tire to go to the end on than the soft?
[00:24:57] Speaker C: Yeah, Antonelli did exactly that. He went soft to lap 43, two laps of medium and then soft again for the rest of the race.
[00:25:09] Speaker D: So he got whatever the optimum tire was. Probably the soft was probably the best tyre. I don't know. But he only got one lap on the less optimal tyre.
[00:25:18] Speaker C: Yes. He had one lap on a 1:1 racing lap on the mediums and then he put on a set of used softs for the second half of the race. Yeah.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Did you see Hirokawa did five stops and got a point.
[00:25:37] Speaker D: He did five stops?
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Only him and Checo both did five stops.
[00:25:42] Speaker C: Did
[00:25:43] Speaker D: he? I don't know.
[00:25:45] Speaker C: Hirokawa. Here, I've got him. Pirelli says he stopped on lap 35, lap 43, 44 and 59.
So that's four stops, 35 43, 44, 59. But yeah, four stops
[00:26:01] Speaker A: on F1 out. It says he did five stops. Him and Checo.
[00:26:05] Speaker C: Maybe there's another one. Maybe there's another one in there somewhere, I don't know.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Did he pit the first safety car?
[00:26:11] Speaker C: I don't know,
[00:26:13] Speaker A: who knows?
[00:26:14] Speaker D: But to be fair, I mean he.
So we'll come to all of the post race penalties and all of that, right? He finished 13th on the road but because of penalties he moved up to 10th and got a point. But he overtook Alex Albon round the outside of turn one to make that place up. So shout out to Hirakawa,
[00:26:39] Speaker C: right?
[00:26:39] Speaker A: He's impressive.
[00:26:40] Speaker D: He
[00:26:40] Speaker A: went
[00:26:41] Speaker D: out and he got it. He went out and got the overtake done that he needed to get done. Obviously not knowing would come and give him a point at the end of it. But dude, I mean could you imagine you're. I mean obviously he's a two time WEC champion and he's going to be racing at Monza this weekend for hopefully his third weck title. So he's a legit driver, right? But he gets his one shot in F1. He scores a point because he puts an overtake on a very good driver in, in Alex Albon. But then on the, on the cooldown lap he's there in the car giving the thumbs up to Kimmy who's just won the world title. You know, that's his, that's his end memory of, of F1. He gets to experience all of that on a historic weekend and then he goes off about the rest of his life because you know, he's 32 years old. He's the second oldest debutant in recent history after a guy called Andre Lotterer who I think was with Caterham or something back 10 years or so ago.
But he got his shot and he made the most of it. So good on him for getting a point.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: So what transpired to put him in the car in the first place? Do we even know? I mean Ocon.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Well, I can tell you all the incidents.
Let's see. Well, I guess this didn't help him get points, but both the Astons retired on lap seven.
Obviously Fernando was able to get into the pits, but Lance pulled off weirdly in front of the, the, the runoff area, the entrance into the, into off the track, the Bottas crash, obviously his suspension exploding, what was it? Oscar got a penalty for crashing into
[00:28:28] Speaker D: Lynnblad.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Lynnblad
[00:28:30] Speaker D: third and fourth, right?
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
Nico got one for hitting Ali on the restart
[00:28:40] Speaker D: and then you. So when the classifications Came down. He was In, I think 13th, but then he moved up 12, 11, 10. Because Oscar's penalty was. Which came after the race.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: You know,
[00:28:54] Speaker D: I guess they wanted to talk to them after the race before passing a penalty. And then seemingly. I don't really know what happened because I've not seen it, but I just read it. The al. Both Alpines got penalized for yellow flag infringements.
Now was.
So I think was
[00:29:14] Speaker C: one of them leaving the pits when it was
[00:29:16] Speaker D: that. Well, that's what I, that's. I think that was Pierre. Right. So I think that they gave him a stop go penalty for that. But. And they added 30 seconds to his, to his time.
[00:29:26] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:29:27] Speaker D: And I think colapinto was maybe seventh on the road, and they added 10 seconds and that was enough to drop him out of the points.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: They were 8th and 10th, I guess Franco was 8th and Pierre was 10th.
[00:29:39] Speaker D: Okay.
Yeah.
So I, I. Because I was assuming that it was maybe Pierre leaving the pits. Although, to be fair, I mean, it was like he was on his way out and then it changed
[00:29:54] Speaker C: very, very close
[00:29:55] Speaker D: through. I mean, it was maybe a second.
Maybe a second.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: And if
[00:29:58] Speaker D: you're not, it's like
[00:29:59] Speaker C: if you're not looking in that direction, if you're doing something in your steering wheel or something, you could easily.
[00:30:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: At
[00:30:04] Speaker D: that point, it's at the exit. You've looked up, you're about to cross the line. You're looking for the line, you're not looking at the light.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Who
[00:30:12] Speaker C: knows?
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Pierre got a stop and go penalty,
[00:30:19] Speaker C: but it
[00:30:19] Speaker D: wasn't taken during the race. It was after the race finished. Because it was off the back of the red flag.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, that was really it. The big overtake, I guess, was Kimmy overtaking Charles to get onto the podium.
[00:30:34] Speaker C: Well, yeah. Charles basically did a repeat almost of his first lap heroics on the restart, where he just sort of threw it in there on the restart, lit up all of his tires and smoke.
Flat spotted
[00:30:49] Speaker D: left was basically down to the canvas. Yeah,
[00:30:51] Speaker A: yeah.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: I heard the, the, the radio call to Norris behind leclerc was like, oh, Lando. You know, Charles has flat spotted his tire. And Lando's like, I know, I can see from my car.
So. But I mean, just Lando couldn't. Couldn't get it done. You know, Charles just had enough.
But yeah, Charles didn't. Did not come out of this weekend looking particularly good. A bit too reckless. It's
[00:31:17] Speaker A: been a tough year for him.
[00:31:19] Speaker D: Yeah,
[00:31:20] Speaker C: yeah,
[00:31:20] Speaker D: yeah. I mean, he's had his ups and his downs. He had his win in Silverstone, but apart from that, he's, you know, it's a win at all costs thing, whether it's your teammate or whether it's who, whatever. He just seems to not really know where the line is sometimes. I mean, I say that. And if. If it had been the other way around and Charles was, you know, in the lead going into turn four, what would Lewis have done? Probably the same thing that Charles done, but, you know, who knows?
The one thing, you know, Martin, you were just saying about how did. How did Hirakawa even get in the car in the first place?
[00:31:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Like, what happened. What. What happened to ocon? Did they. They just don't like him anymore? Well, clearly, because the news is now out that he's. He's out completely for the rest of the season.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, dear listeners, ladies and gentlemen, it may surprise you to know that we are not professional podcasters. We do have day jobs. It is Tuesday today.
And so, yeah, the news has just come out that Ocon is out forever for good. No longer with the Haas race team or he's no longer in a race seat. It's going to be Rafa Camera in Brazil. He is Brazilian.
I mean, good for him. He gets to make his debut in front of his home crowd, which
[00:32:29] Speaker C: amazing.
[00:32:30] Speaker D: Sure comes with its pressures, but it's going to be an amazing experience for him. But, yeah, I mean, Hirokawa was in the car for FP1, then in FP2, they were doing some runs and OCON disagreed with the call for, you know, different tire runs and seemed to take offense to it and was yelling down the radio at his race engineer. And then seemingly after that, there was a big argument or there was a discussion, a meeting of mines with. Between OCON and.
And the team principal, Ayakamatsu.
They left that. And then the next morning, OCON was out of the drive for this week.
Hirokawa was sitting in the hotel having his breakfast. I'm sure got a call saying you're in and did the job. Now, I don't know what's transpired since then. Obviously, there's been a couple of days of further discussions. There are rumors around things, but OCON put something out on social media on Monday saying whatever rumors are about things turning physical in a meeting, that's entirely not true. I think it's lakeep who put out something saying that there was a physical altercation in a meeting with Aya Komatsu. He's disputed that. Said it's entirely false and violence is not the solution to any argument, all that kind of stuff.
But here we are on Tuesday and Esteban Ocon's F1 career, to all intents and purposes is now over. There are no seats for him. There are only two seats on Confirmed, which is at Cadillac, although that's Perez and Botas does have a contract and at Racing Bulls where Lindblad is in. And we don't really know what's happening with Liam Lawson. So.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:34:21] Speaker C: yeah,
[00:34:21] Speaker D: I
[00:34:22] Speaker C: mean, yeah, yeah, Oon's out. Yeah,
[00:34:26] Speaker A: yeah. I mean in his defense with whatever like past transgressions we have, when Max got in his face, Ocon did not fight back. Do you remember that one moment when they had a coming together on track really early on in their careers and Max tried to fight him in the, in the garage and Ocon backed down, but who knows what happened?
[00:34:50] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean from, from what you hear, Esteban Ocon is supposed to be just a really nice guy off the track around and everything like that. So,
[00:34:58] Speaker A: you
[00:34:59] Speaker D: know, he's obviously had his, his, you know, his. When the visor's down, he has his moments as Pierre could tell you, as many teammates could actually tell you.
So I, yeah, I don't know what the deal is.
You know, maybe this.
I think he came up through the Ferrari academy. He's a Ferrari guy I think in the past. So, you know, maybe there's a chance of a Ferrari third driver seats. I don't know. I don't know what their up and coming rookies look like.
But yeah, I think he's kind of done now.
I mean it does also get onto Liam Lawson. I kind of touched on that one briefly. Still not confirmed.
I don't know, the way people have been talking, it seems like he may be out. I don't know if
[00:35:44] Speaker A: they.
[00:35:46] Speaker D: It's nuts. I was watching the sky coverage, the sky feed on Apple TV and Karun Chandhok was saying how it's like, yeah, this would be the most unjust sacking in the history of Formula one pretty much. Cause what's a guy gotta do? He's got I don't know how many, maybe double the points of his teammate. And you know, it's.
Yeah, he's just done a really good job and this was another great weekend for him. He had another solid drive from to seventh from the pit lane because of. He was disqualified from qualifying for the most F1 of reasons. Did you hear about this? Apparently when he crossed the line after his qualifying lap, he came off the Gas and his engine didn't go derate at the appropriate rate and it was a technical infringement and he got disqualified from qualifying.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:36:39] Speaker C: Wow. I didn't hear that at all. That is they can. They monitor everything, don't they?
[00:36:44] Speaker D: I mean it's just the most F1, 20, 26 of reasons. It's just bonkers.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah. It has nothing to do with him or anything that he did wrong in that instance.
Well, I think that's. That's pretty much it. Other than Coops F1.
[00:37:01] Speaker C: Coops F1.
So this week top scorer Nicholas with 238 points. And then three guys all not you. And then all three guys with 220 points. B. Wheeler, Nigel M and Fast Tortoise. I haven't seen that username before but I like that. Fast tortoise. 220 points overall standings. Not much change at the top. Tablet ID still first. Beaver Taro second fight to win, up one spot to third.
Jason making a one step forward up to six.
You have the dream, the dream of being on the podium. Still alive.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Back in the hunt
[00:37:42] Speaker C: with with a few races to go.
Nick up 12 spots to 27th.
Could still make the top 10. Maybe I'm up 12 places to 65th maybe. Can I make the top 50? We're just all looking to make incremental improvement.
[00:37:59] Speaker D: Drive. You could make it into the top 50.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: Could also drop like a stone in the other direction.
I guess the question is
[00:38:08] Speaker D: our newer listeners, just some people go, what's this we're talking about coops? F1 is our fantasy game which everyone is in touch is. Can join us go to coopsf1.com you won't be able to win the championship but maybe you can make the right picks to get talked about in the last the next few weeks for picking the drivers in the right order
[00:38:29] Speaker C: in the right front page. Yeah.
Thanks for the shout out.
How many races are there left though, right? Brazil is coming up this week.
[00:38:39] Speaker D: Yes, at least. And
[00:38:40] Speaker C: then Vegas and then Vegas after that. And then I guess. Yeah. Qatar, Abu Dhabi and. And Saudi Arabia are just, you know, pipe dreams. Maybe. I don't know. Not, not officially. Well, Saudi Arabia is practically cancelled but Qatar and Abu Dhabi are basically canceled. I guess. But they haven't announced it, right?
[00:39:00] Speaker D: No, they haven't. I mean my theory, they're either going ahead or they're not. Right.
[00:39:06] Speaker C: I mean
[00:39:07] Speaker D: great, great insights, Nick.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: 50 then.
[00:39:12] Speaker D: Right. But if they're not, they didn't want to announce it because of the thing that we've been talking about. For the last. I don't know how long is that they wanted this. If Kimmy's going to win it, they wanted to win it on track, and they've done that.
I'm super glad that Kimmy got to celebrate on the podium as well, but they wanted to get. They wanted to get that out of the way before they announced anything. So either they're on or now is the time that they'll announce that they're off. An interesting, if you find this interesting, is that Rafa Kamara is going to be racing in Brazil. Right.
The last two rounds, I think two rounds of the F2 championship are supposed to be in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, I believe.
So he's currently leading F2.
If those races don't take place, then he will be F2 champion.
If they do take place and he is participating in F1 and not F2, then who's the Red Bull guy?
Solov. Nikolai Solov has the opportunity to beat him to the F2 title.
Not that Rafa Camera would care in any way, shape or form, because the whole point of going in F2 is to get to F1 and he's already here. So there we go. Everyone would be happy.
[00:40:33] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you're exactly right for the. For the organizers of F1 if they're going to announce these cancellations, not to have the complication of handing Kimmy, as I think you said before, Nick, the championship on a Tuesday afternoon.
Now that that's done and there's still all to play for for the guys behind, they can still race out Brazil and Vegas for those. As we said, those guys are still so tight in the second, third, fourth, fifth.
You know, race your races and see what you can do.
[00:41:05] Speaker D: Yeah.
The constructors, though. Go ahead. Before we get into constructors, Martin, go ahead.
[00:41:10] Speaker C: Well, I was just going to say one other thing that just occurred to me was fair play to Kimmy as well. At the end of the race in Mexico, putting that. That overtake on Charles, like, even though he didn't need to do it for the points to win the championship, you know, he put the moves on and he was still fighting for his position, which was. Which is pretty cool. Yeah. Maybe
[00:41:30] Speaker D: Lewis has won the World Championship here in Mexico and not been on the podium, which is kind of. I
[00:41:36] Speaker C: mean, what. What a great podium to have to win your first championship as well, to stand up there with, you know what, some of your heroes effectively.
[00:41:44] Speaker D: Yeah. I
[00:41:45] Speaker C: mean,
[00:41:45] Speaker D: what an iconic picture, right? That photo of Kimmy on the shoulders of Max and Lewis
[00:41:50] Speaker A: on
[00:41:51] Speaker D: the paper and winning his first. That's, you know, that's
[00:41:54] Speaker C: a pretty cool
[00:41:54] Speaker D: picture that will stick around for a while, I'm sure.
[00:41:57] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:41:59] Speaker A: well,
[00:42:00] Speaker D: but the money's on the constructor's title. So, you know, we're talking about if they cancel the last few races of the season, you know, they've got to do it pretty quickly because otherwise, I mean, they can't wait until after Vegas and go, well, actually folks, that's it because then you've got, you know, Red Bull, Ferrari. I don't know quite how the constructors are right now relative to, you know, really Ferrari, red Bull and McLaren. But if, you know, one's on a vein of form and they could get higher in the constructors and they just cut it off. Could there be legal shenanigans and all that kind of stuff?
[00:42:39] Speaker C: It's not that, it's not that close really. Mercedes of 120 points ahead of Ferrari in second and they're 120 points ahead of Red Bull in third. It's only 15 points or so between McLaren and Red Bull. Third, fourth. So that's, that's the only real spot that's up for grabs. I mean, lower down teams can make massive moves if they somehow pick up a handful of points. But, you know, Mercedes
[00:43:06] Speaker D: do in, in Brazil because they've always been pretty good there, right?
[00:43:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean
[00:43:10] Speaker D: they're,
[00:43:11] Speaker C: they're 30 points or 40 point. They're 40 points behind racing bulls, you know, but racing bulls are two. Yeah. So it's the, it's the third, third and fourth. Red Bull McLaren is somewhat up for grabs. The rest is probably set in stone. So race it out.
Well,
[00:43:30] Speaker A: you're four points apart.
[00:43:32] Speaker C: They're four points apart, which is kind of a chasm when you're only picking up a couple of points a race, I guess. But yeah, there's something to play for there for sure.
[00:43:40] Speaker D: Yeah. And that's, that's big when you think about Hulkenberg getting that penalty. Right. I don't know where, where he went, where he finished going across the line. But if he dropped back, that could, that could be an expensive penalty.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: He has to give up the corner. I had the nose ahead.
What is wrong with these people?
[00:43:57] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the undercuts review of the 2026 Mexico Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen and join us next time for our review of the 2026 Brazilian Grand Prix. We'll see you there.
