Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2025 Mexican Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy the show.
[00:00:20] 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.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: Well, guys, we're back for the Mexican Grand Prix 2025. And that only means that we get the mariachi intro music again, which I say every single time they should have at every race weekend.
[00:00:47] Speaker D: It's the.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: It's the best version.
[00:00:50] Speaker E: It is a solid version, I'll give you that.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: But yeah, we finally had a pretty chaotic race. I feel like we've had a few race weekends now where it's been pretty straightforward for the most part.
[00:01:04] Speaker E: But yeah, we didn't really have a whole lot to talk about last week, did we?
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Yeah, no, not at all.
[00:01:11] Speaker D: And maybe this week is somewhat similar. At the front. Right. It was just a dominant display by one car anyway.
A lot more going on behind. But.
[00:01:20] Speaker E: But stuff did happen.
[00:01:21] Speaker D: Stuff. Absolutely.
[00:01:22] Speaker E: Stuff happened.
[00:01:24] Speaker D: Stuff happened.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: But yeah, I mean, like you said, like. Yeah, like you said, Lando cruised. Cruised away from the jump. He was the fastest essentially since he sat in the car. And that was all we saw of him.
[00:01:39] Speaker E: Yeah. Cause he wasn't even in FP1, right.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.
[00:01:43] Speaker E: Nine rookies taking place in FP1. I don't know who the 10th actual Grand Prix driver was, the non rookie. Did you look and see who it was? I know that pretty much. Well, obviously nine out of the 10 teams fielded a rookie. Yeah.
No, I didn't see the FP1 results.
[00:02:02] Speaker D: I saw the video of Russell sneaking into the stands wearing like Mexican wrestling masks to watch some of the race amongst the fans. That was pretty funny.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah, that was funny.
[00:02:12] Speaker E: It was the first time he'd seen. Yeah. First time he says he's seen F1 cars on track in years and years and years.
So it is kind of cool that he.
That he did get to do that. Yeah.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: I'm trying to see who was actually some guy named Lindball Blad. Yeah.
[00:02:34] Speaker E: So Arvind Lindblad was there.
Yeah. The only team that didn't field a rookie was Sauber. I see Hulkenberg and Bortoletto were there, but Pato O' Ward was in the McLaren. That's right.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: Yeah. That was cool.
[00:02:50] Speaker E: Obviously paid a lot of money for that. Rio hirokawa who's like 30 or something and similarly like a guy in the Ferrari who just fancied a bit of a spin for a lot of money.
But yeah, Lynblad did pretty well faster than Tsunoda.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: How about that?
[00:03:13] Speaker E: And Fred Vesty was in the. In the Mercedes, as I was telling you guys last week. Met a few drivers a couple of weeks ago down at Road Atlanta and Fred Vesty was one of them. That was kind of cool to see him in the car. That's cool.
[00:03:27] Speaker C: All right, well, he is very tall.
All right, well, I guess should we start with the incidents on lap one? I mean, how many people went wide at that very first moment? Obviously Max was. Was the big one. Charles went wide too.
[00:03:43] Speaker D: Right, Charles? Yeah, Charles and Max were the ones who went off and gained. I mean, Charles, I think gained the. The biggest advantage. He was miles ahead of.
[00:03:52] Speaker E: He just gunned. He just gunned the throttle and off. He was.
I mean, no in. I mean, no intent to make the corner. I mean, I, I feel for Lewis. Right. If you watch Lewis's in car, he's right up behind Lando through turn one, through turn two, into turn three. Everyone's like flying by him coming off the grass and he finds himself down in fourth and he was like right up behind Lando.
[00:04:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:04:19] Speaker E: So, I mean, Max Verstappen gave places back.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:27] Speaker E: Charles didn't, but Charles knew that. Who were going to complain? Ferrari.
[00:04:31] Speaker D: Yeah, well, Charles gave back first. He was, but he was behind.
[00:04:36] Speaker E: But Lewis was past him into turn two, through turn two, into turn three. And Charles just took off over the grass.
[00:04:44] Speaker D: And to say that Max was definitely ahead of Hamilton at the first corner is a. I'm not sure that's true. Just because Max, like you said, he didn't really make attempt at the corner. He was going way faster and just went straight on.
[00:04:57] Speaker E: Yeah, he was. He said that he was bottoming out on the curb, but he knows that because that's where he went. Right. So he had. He had no intention of making that cor.
And nearly hit the wall.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:08] Speaker E: I mean, very skillful grass tracking going on.
But he was a little close.
[00:05:16] Speaker D: But yeah, it was a bit of a mess. And like, how are you supposed to unpick that?
[00:05:20] Speaker E: And then, yeah, George was annoyed, but. But I mean, Max was well ahead of George going into the. Into the breaking point. So yeah, you can kind of get why he didn't. But George's point was.
Well, it's a get out of field, get out of jail free card. You just don't even make the corner. And as long as you slip back in where you were before the breaking zone, you don't have to make the corner. And I kind of see his point. But that's. Them's the rules. Right.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: Right now.
[00:05:46] Speaker D: So after it was all shuffled out, it ended up being Norris, Charles Hamilton, Max Russell. And then, you know, the person who lost out potentially was Hamilton who could have been, could have been second Charles, you know.
Yeah, but they're not gonna.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: And he got the penalty and he got the penalty. Right. He was the only one that cut the corner that ended up getting a penalty.
[00:06:08] Speaker E: No. So nobody got a penalty for lap one, Turn one.
[00:06:12] Speaker D: No, nobody got a penalty for any of that.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: So what was Lewis's penalty for?
[00:06:16] Speaker E: That was for lap six.
[00:06:18] Speaker D: Lap six? Yeah. That was crazy. So Max was right up on Hamilton.
They're side by side. Max gets through, then Hamilton goes off defending from Russell, who's then. So Max. So Max is now ahead of Hamilton. Russell's attacking Hamilton. Hamilton goes off, gains an advantage, staying ahead of Hamilton. Sorry, staying ahead of Russell and at the same time Bearman overtakes Max.
[00:06:47] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:06:47] Speaker E: And George.
[00:06:49] Speaker D: Right?
[00:06:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:50] Speaker D: So Max, now Hamilton can't give the place back to anybody because it's not the car behind him anymore.
[00:06:55] Speaker E: Yeah, Max did maintain because it was a, you know, there was contact on the exit of turn one with Lewis.
Max dive bombed it, but kept it under control.
He was, per the letter of the rule, just enough alongside into turn one because Max knows the rules better than anyone.
He did make contact, but stayed in bounds.
Lewis went round, came back on Max, actually cut turn two, but. And stayed ahead of.
Stayed ahead of Lewis. Behind Lewis was George and Ollie Bearman. Lewis got a good run down to turn three, but breaked too late.
Right, defending Verstappen break too late as well, which massively compromised him on the entrance to turn five, which is why he was so slow. He pushed George out wide and that's when Bearman came through, passing both of them to go from like six to fourth. Right.
Was that six to fourth. It was crazy.
[00:08:03] Speaker D: Hamilton was way down the road.
[00:08:05] Speaker E: But the reason he got the penalty, because they also investigated him for not obeying the race director's instructions because they'd put that garden path through the grass which is about as wide as you can get a wheelbarrow down. Although we did see Lewis go through. Through it in quali, I think.
And so he didn't break enough and ended up cutting across the grass. He'd gone into turn four level with Max and came out about 100 meters further up the road and made no attempt whatsoever to come off the gas, do anything. Ferrari told them they got the penalty for the overtake on Verstappen, but that's not what they gave it for. He came out 100 meters down the road and did nothing to come back. I mean, if Max had been ahead, maybe they'd have said give the place back, but by then he was behind Bearman anyway, so that, you know, what do you do in that situation?
[00:09:03] Speaker D: I mean, it would have, if he would, it would have behooved him to give back the place to Bearman and Max. That would have cost him less.
[00:09:09] Speaker E: It would have cost him less time. Yeah, I mean, but that's it. The standard penalty is 10 seconds unless there's mitigating circumstances. But obviously no mitigating circumstances in this case.
[00:09:20] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I mean, there's not much you could do. What are you going to do?
[00:09:25] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, you know, Hamilton's right to feel aggrieved with the first lap, but he can't really feel too hard done by on lap six because that was a slam dunk penalty for, you know, being so far down the road. I think the fact that he's the only one that got a penalty out of all of that stuff, I can see why he's annoyed and he's very monosyllabic in the press conference at the end when he's had a bad day. Right. Because at that point he was in third, you know, he was battling for third position. So, you know, he had the makings of a great race.
The Ferrari seemed to be quick.
Probably wouldn't have held Verstappen back for too long because Verstappen did have a. He was on a different set of strategies, different, different tyres and particularly for the, for the, the back half of the race on the softs at the end would have easily got by him, but race ruined for Lewis.
[00:10:14] Speaker D: Right? Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:17] Speaker C: At least for his first real podium at Ferrari. But I mean, Oscar, I guess is the one that paid the biggest price. On lap one, he dropped all the way back to, what was it? P9 and then he was just stuck behind Yuki forever on.
He was on faster tires. I don't understand how he wasn't able to get by.
[00:10:36] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, it was just. He qualified in eighth, obviously. Sainz had a five grid spot penalty for the contact with Antonelli in Austin, which promoted Piastri to seventh. So with Lando on pole and Max on fifth, Piastri starting seventh, he always had to make up some ground, didn't he?
And he did struggle on those medium tyres in the first st.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, he was able to make up.
[00:11:04] Speaker E: Oh, was he on the soft in the first in.
Did they go soft, medium?
[00:11:08] Speaker C: I think it was, yeah. It was just the Red Bulls that started on mediums in the top.
[00:11:12] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is why it's even more surprising he's on the faster tire, which was the better race tire, the soft.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:18] Speaker E: And couldn't get past Yuki.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: Yeah, just kind of. I mean, it looked like they had the pace later on. So if he was able to get by Yuki, he might have had a better shot of moving even further ahead in the end.
[00:11:31] Speaker E: But yeah, one thing that did happen on, on lap three. Did you get. I think we traded it on the. On the Watts app. The. The marshals went onto the. The track to pick up some debris, not realizing that Lawson had gone into the pits to get a new front wing. So he wasn't with the rest of the pack. And then they come round. He comes round the corner, turn one, and there's two marshals like literally right in front of him running across the track when they didn't really need to be there. There was one small piece of debris in the runoff area and a piece in the grass. It's like, guys, you didn't really need to be there.
[00:12:09] Speaker D: Yeah, that's. That was insane. That's scary. But luckily everybody's okay.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:17] Speaker D: And I mean, when was it? It was lap 11. Piastri finally got by Tsunoda, right. Apiastria.
I mean, he did get stuck there for a while, but then he started to make decent ground on people. He was passing, passing people, making up places.
[00:12:35] Speaker E: So yeah, he did have a good couple of oovertakes. Was it one on Ocon? After his pit stop, he was on faster tyres, but he made a good robust maneuver there and then on George as well.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:48] Speaker E: A little bit later on.
[00:12:49] Speaker D: Yeah, later on. Yeah, around lap 60 or so. Yeah. Plus overtaking Antonelli in the pits. Right. They both pitted at the same time around lap 48.
And that's right, Piastri was behind.
He just beat. Yeah, he said a faster pit stop.
[00:13:05] Speaker E: And came out another three point something. Pit stop for McLaren a little bit later as well. Right on. Was that his second stop or his first stop?
Yeah, I think it was Oscar's first stop.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Because the second one is where he. They had the good stuff. He was able to come out in.
[00:13:22] Speaker E: The pits which is unusual because normally it's the second stop that's slow, not the first one.
[00:13:27] Speaker D: Right.
They save it up.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Yeah, but he was the second stop because land. Well, I did land, I guess Oscar pit before Lando, right?
[00:13:35] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. I think Lando ran long because he had a plenty. He had plenty of life in his tires. He was in clean air the whole way around.
[00:13:43] Speaker D: Yeah, all those guys that finished fourth and down, they all two stopped soft, medium soft, whereas the top three just did the one stopper for their strategy.
[00:13:55] Speaker E: Yeah, this was another track where it's kind of low grip so cars are sliding around. Obviously it's low grip because you pile on the downforce. The air is so thin because they're at like 2200 meters.
I don't know quite how hard that is in feet, but it's, it's like high.
[00:14:18] Speaker D: 6,000 something feet.
[00:14:19] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. And so it's like similar levels of downforce to Monza but with Monaco style wings on it.
So cars are sliding around and I mean that's kind of what they're pointing at Oscar for not being able to deal with. Similar to last week where he gets the tyres hot and then he can't quite deal with it.
He feels he has to drive in a different way and as soon as you start thinking about how you're driving, you're never going to be as fast. And I think that's really been the difference in the last two weeks. Especially Brazil next weekend.
Bit more of a normal track in terms of grip levels.
Assuming it's dry, I mean.
[00:15:03] Speaker D: Yeah, you never know.
[00:15:04] Speaker E: You never know with Brazil.
[00:15:05] Speaker D: Right.
[00:15:05] Speaker E: I mean if it's wet it's going to be a max track. When he came from 17, he qualified 17th last year and, and, and won the race. So he likes it there, so that's a chance for him. But interesting to see how, how Oscar bounces back from two lackluster weekends.
[00:15:25] Speaker D: You mentioned tire management and tires getting hot. There was this excellent radio transmission between Russell and the engineer. The engineer came on and right that 41 or so and said, keep those rear, gotta cool your rear tires. Russell, they had to beep out half of his response. I've got a car, I've got a faster car up my blank.
[00:15:47] Speaker E: That was Piastri at the time, wasn't it?
[00:15:49] Speaker D: Yeah, Piastri was behind him, Antonelli was in front of.
And somehow, yeah, they managed to swap Antonelli and Russell without Piastri getting through, which is usually tricky to do.
[00:16:00] Speaker E: But George was, I think on the radio for what Five plus laps saying, let me through.
I've got way more pace, as the car behind always says.
[00:16:08] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:10] Speaker E: And then he didn't really do anything. I mean, he said he'd give the place back to Kimi later on in the race if it didn't happen, and he did. So he stayed true to that. And.
But yeah, it was a funny radio transmission I did hear as well. I didn't hear all of it because someone was talking to me at the time.
But at one point, GP came on the radio to Max and they were talking and then he didn't turn his radio off and he's going, so what are we doing, a one stop or a two stop? What's going on?
[00:16:37] Speaker D: Yeah, Max is like, I can.
[00:16:39] Speaker E: I can hear you.
[00:16:40] Speaker D: I can hear everything.
I'm still here.
[00:16:43] Speaker E: I'm still here. You said that out loud.
[00:16:49] Speaker D: Yeah, but, yeah, a little, like, insight into, like, they all. Sometimes the engineers sound or like they have all the information and they know everything that's going on. A little insight there into. Sometimes they're like, what's going on?
[00:17:01] Speaker E: Yeah, it was. It was interesting to just hear that bit of uncertainty because they always come across on the radio as super confident in knowing what they're doing. Yeah.
[00:17:08] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: Well, it almost did work out for them in the end, except for, you know, Charles's old teammate breaking down and ending the fight.
[00:17:18] Speaker D: I mean, I think Max had possibly. I mean, obviously Lando, like, drove away from the field, but Max did absolutely the best he could. And then with the alternate tire strategy of going medium soft instead of soft medium like everybody else. I mean, he was down in. I mean, obviously people ahead of him had to make second. Had to make second pit stops, but Max was down in, like, eighth or so after his pit stop on lap 37.
And then would put those soft tires to work and, like, ripped his way back through the field.
[00:17:49] Speaker E: Yeah. Who was it? Who was the first one to jump onto the two stop? Was that George.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: Antonelli pit on lap 22?
[00:17:58] Speaker C: It was Oscar and Antonelli.
[00:18:01] Speaker D: Right.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Because that's when the swap happened in the pit lane.
[00:18:07] Speaker D: No, that was on lap 47 when they. When he overtook.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: That would be the second stop.
[00:18:11] Speaker D: Right, that was the second stop. So Antonelli Pitt first on lap 22, but then Hamilton 23, Bearman and Piastri on lap 24, and Russell on 25. So they all did their first stop, all pretty much at the same. At the same time.
[00:18:26] Speaker E: But then. Yeah. Who stopped first of the two stoppers.
[00:18:30] Speaker D: Yeah, Antonelli on lap 22.
[00:18:32] Speaker E: Yeah, I guess that was his second stop.
[00:18:34] Speaker C: No, that was his first stop.
[00:18:35] Speaker D: No, no, that was his first stop. And then they.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: For the second stop. That was when the swap happened. Right. When Oscar was able to jump to me.
[00:18:42] Speaker D: Yeah, that was on lap 47, along with Hamilton. All three of them came in simultaneously. Hamilton, Antonelli and Piastri.
[00:18:48] Speaker E: Yeah, Piastri jumped Antonelli and then Bearman decided.
[00:18:52] Speaker D: Bearman came a lap later.
[00:18:53] Speaker E: A lap later? Yeah. I mean, it was.
I was kind of thinking, well, why did he not just stay out? Maybe his tires will stay.
But then you kind of realize, no, they were get. They were getting aggressive and they wanted to try and, you know, undercut, potentially.
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:19:10] Speaker E: Leclair, who didn't stop a second time.
[00:19:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:15] Speaker E: And it was just then a bit too much ground to catch up. But I think, you know, Behrman was definitely under a lot of pressure from Piastri at the same time as. As leclerc was under pressure from Max when. When Carlos spun out in the stadium, which probably saved Bearman's day as much as it saved leclerc's day.
[00:19:34] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:34] Speaker E: Because they were getting closed down pretty quickly.
[00:19:37] Speaker D: I mean, there's probably no doubt that Verstappen would have taken leclerc on the final lap at turn one.
The VSC saved him. But I think Max was very pragmatic at the end. He said, you know, sometimes the safety car works for you, sometimes it works against you. And he's been in Formula one long enough to experience both, so he's like, you can't expect it to always work in your favour. Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker E: If it was for the win, maybe he'd not been quite as magnanimous, but he still finished on the podium. And it's like, is it two? Is it three? Well, it's not one, but it's on there, so it's fine.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: And, I mean, like, Lando obviously jumped Oscar in the championship, and the way that Oscar's performing and Max is performing, I mean, was it really all that detrimental to his championship fight?
[00:20:28] Speaker D: Him being Max, you're saying?
[00:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah, Max.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:20:31] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I mean, Max is absolutely still in with a shout. We're just waiting for one of these drivers to sort of pull away from the others. But what's happened, obviously, is they just keep bunching up. You know, Oscar had the lead. You know, he had, what, 20 plus point lead on Lando at one point, and that's gone. Right. He's now a point behind. Verstappen's still in the race. So as long as they keep trade, if they keep trading blows like this, it's going to go right down to the wire. Yeah, but you think now Oscar's had a few bad races in a row. Can Lando keep that momentum?
Race to race, it just seems to change.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:11] Speaker D: Verstappen does do well in, in.
[00:21:14] Speaker E: He does do well in Brazil, but he's, he's, you know, going into this weekend, it was. He has to be perfect. He has to win every race. He didn't win the race, but he did make up four points on the overall championship lead.
[00:21:27] Speaker D: Right, because. Because the guy not in first won.
[00:21:30] Speaker E: Right, exactly. So he lost. He lost ground to Lando but gained on the title battle.
[00:21:37] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:38] Speaker E: He still has to be perfect through.
We got four races left. Brazil, which is a sprint. Vegas, which is not a sprint. Qatar, which is a sprint. And then Abu Dhabi, which is not. I think Qatar and Abu DHABI probably more McLaren like, in terms of what they like, it's gonna, yeah, it's gonna be super interesting coming down the stretch. Who's gonna hold on?
[00:22:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
All right. And then just to quickly go through some of the guys that did well but, you know, weren't really on the screen for us to watch. But obviously the other Haas Okon was able to get into the points and Gabby getting back into the points when his teammate had an awful weekend and retired early. I don't remember what the issue was.
[00:22:22] Speaker E: But I think it was some power unit issue.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: But Gabby's taken over there.
[00:22:28] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, he's the young gun. I mean, he, he, he won F3, then won F2 and he's straight into F1 and you know, similar to Oscar. Similar to George.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:37] Speaker E: Charles as well. Right. He did F3, F2, F1.
[00:22:40] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So George, George.
[00:22:42] Speaker E: Yeah. So no, no doubting the talent.
It's not surprising. He's, he's, he's finding his feet.
Another retiree was Fernando.
It was funny because they just had him let stroll by. He was maybe having a problem and they said, let's stroll by. And then he just drove straight into the pits and got out of the car.
[00:23:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:23:04] Speaker E: So of course the Internet went crazy on that one, saying he let, he got told to let stroll past and then just packed it up and left.
[00:23:13] Speaker D: My ego can't take that.
[00:23:14] Speaker C: Well.
[00:23:14] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: It was his third retirement in a row, so not good.
[00:23:21] Speaker D: Poor Fernando.
[00:23:22] Speaker E: Yeah. We didn't talk. We did talk briefly about Yuki qualified.
What did Yuki qualify?
[00:23:29] Speaker C: P8, P9.
[00:23:31] Speaker E: Yeah. He was running ahead of Oscar at one point and then Oscar came back to fifth and Yuki finished 11th.
So not a great weekend. I mean, it was probably his least worst weekend he got. I don't know what happened in his pit stop, but he lost a lot of time in the pits and that kind of put him back. I mean, he probably would have been nice.
So some points, but I don't know, it feels like the writing's kind of on the wall and writing's on the wall for Yuki. Now they were supposed to announce the driver lineup after Mexico. Apparently now they've said it's going to be at least Qatar, so.
[00:24:09] Speaker D: Oh, you mean like who's going to have that seat next to Max next year?
[00:24:13] Speaker E: Well, who's going to have any of those seats in the Red Bull stable?
[00:24:17] Speaker D: Right, right. I guess the betting right now that it's going to be Verstappen and Hajar in the main. In the main cars.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess.
[00:24:25] Speaker E: But then, and then who's in the race?
[00:24:27] Speaker D: Does Hajar want that? I don't know that.
[00:24:29] Speaker E: Of course.
[00:24:30] Speaker D: Of course.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: Well, unless another team gives him a seat, I guess it's all new.
[00:24:36] Speaker D: It's all new regs next year though, right? So.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:41] Speaker C: You have no idea who's going to be good or who's not.
[00:24:44] Speaker D: No idea. Yeah.
[00:24:45] Speaker C: But I guess Ferrari is a winner but Lewis is a loser. I mean, because Ferrari took over P2 and the constructors.
[00:24:52] Speaker D: Correct.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: And.
[00:24:55] Speaker E: But it's still so tight between Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes that's. I mean, any of the, any of those three teams finishing fourth in the constructors is not a satisfactory year, let's just say that.
[00:25:11] Speaker D: So, I mean, they were talking about Leclerc like lifting and coasting like halfway through the race to manage temperatures and stuff, but maybe other cars were too. It didn't seem to cost him, you know, a massive amount of time. He lost more time at the end when his tires were going off, I feel. But it wasn't uncompetitive necessarily at any, any point due to that. But I, you know, it's weird seeing, seeing a Ferrari on the podium was awesome.
[00:25:39] Speaker E: But that's his seventh, seventh podium of the season. Is it for Leclerc, Is that right? Yeah, I mean he's had quite a few and a couple in succession now.
But yeah, obviously the, like I say he was saved a little bit by Sainz at the end. I did see the in car view of Sainz spinning out in the stadium section and then pulling straight behind the barrier so it looked like the VSC wasn't needed, but apparently he hadn't pulled in all the way and the back end of the car was still on the track and it started smoking. And then as soon as they had to get Marshalls out with fire extinguishers, that's really what drove the vsc. So they, you know, especially having had Marshalls on turn one on lap three, it was like, you know, let's just neutralize this a little bit properly and deal with it. And so, you know, I think at the time it looked like it's like why he drove straight off and he was behind a barrier. I think even Karun Chandhok on the. On the broadcast on ESPN sky said he could see the car behind the barrier, but it was. The back end was sticking out and that's why. That's why they pulled it.
[00:26:51] Speaker D: It's great. You go, you go back and watch any. Like some of these races from the 80s or whatever, they'll just leave cars parked on the side of the track for the entire race as cars go by full speed, you know, for 40 laps. It's a different world.
[00:27:05] Speaker C: Times have changed.
[00:27:07] Speaker D: A safer world now for sure.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: But yeah, and I guess, Martin, you want to can you briefly run us through coupes?
[00:27:18] Speaker D: Oh, yes, the coups picks this week. So, I mean, people still struggling for points, but freak freaking fast. Frank got the top score this week.
228. And then M3PVF1 with 225. And then our very own Nick, 215 points.
[00:27:38] Speaker E: There we go. Vaulted me back up a little bit, right?
[00:27:41] Speaker D: Yeah. Damage, Damage limitation.
You're going back in the right direction. So, yeah, our Heatley still one and tablet ID two, but Jason back up to third and then Nick back up to fifth.
[00:27:57] Speaker E: Gabby Portoletto coming in in 10th helped me a little bit there because I put him in 10th for Singapore and haven't updated any of my picks since they finally came in.
[00:28:10] Speaker D: I actually had a positive week for once. I went up a few places, but I'm still 154th.
I'm not sure where Mark is. I'll have to check.
But yeah, it's getting. It's getting tricky to pick. Right. It's. Anybody can be up there. I mean, I'd have to look at the stats. I don't know if anybody had Bearman in fourth.
I mean, that.
[00:28:35] Speaker C: Nobody that's near the top, I would think would have picked that.
[00:28:39] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, but, but like, I mean, we did talk about him in the context of the overtake on. On lap six, but the way that he just managed everything and they didn't get kind of caught up in inertia and not wanting to pull the trigger on. On a two stop and just kind of leaving there like a sitting duck. Which smaller teams who have less experience running at the front do that all the time.
[00:29:03] Speaker D: Right.
[00:29:04] Speaker E: They, they did really well both from a strategy perspective and an execution perspective. I think that, you know, this was definitely a.
A landmark race for Ollie Bearman. I think when he, when he came in for Carlos last year in Saudi Arabia, people took notice seeing, well, just, you know, he's just jumped straight in a car for the first time. This kid's actually pretty good.
He's had a few wobbles during the course of his rookie season, some silly mistakes like at Silverstone and all of that, but this was, yeah, definitely him stating his case. And I think this is definitely positioned him now as being definitely seen in the way that Isaac Hajar has been seen since relatively early on.
[00:29:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:48] Speaker E: This is a guy who deserves to be in F1.
[00:29:51] Speaker D: Yeah. This is probably like the best set of rookies as a group that we've had for a long time. I mean, only Colapinto who's kind of like not doing anything right, but everybody else is scoring points, mixing it up, you know, getting in there. So I think most, most of these guys except Cola Vinto could be around for a while.
[00:30:13] Speaker E: Yeah, but you know, I mean, Aaron.
Yeah, I mean Paul Aaron is the person who's in.
Who's the other potential person in Alpine. But I'm just looking how he fared relative to Colapinto.
He was half a second Behind Colapinto in FP1, so I think Colapinto's probably got the seat again for next year.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Undercut's review of the 2025 Mexico Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time for our review of the 2025 Brazil Grand Prix.
[00:31:00] Speaker C: We'll see.
