Latest / The Undercut / Max Verstappen Wins the Weirdest Race of the Season - 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia Review

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Max Verstappen Wins the Weirdest Race of the Season - 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia Review · The Undercut

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:08
  Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy the show.
• 0:19
  Speaker A: By being a racing driver, you are
• 0:21
  Speaker B: under risk all the time.
• 0:24
  Speaker A: 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.
• 0:32
  Speaker B: Boys, Max finally did it right. The first race of the year, the first race win of the year for him. The 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. It is a mouthful.
• 0:44
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 0:44
  Speaker C: Or if you kind of get the throwback to the 2000s television, it's Bahrain Grand Prix, Malaysia edition there.
• 0:52
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 0:54
  Speaker C: Right. Yeah, it's thrilled to be back at Sepang. A great, great circuit. Like I said on last week, Herman Tilke's first and arguably his best. And I think a lot of the drivers, you know, throughout the weekend, particularly in the earlier running, was like, because not many people, not many of the drivers on the current grid, probably more than half haven't raced here before. Really effusive in, in how they describe the, the track. Fast flowing, a proper driver's track. Very, very hot, though. Very, very hot, very humid. And I think that was part of. It was certainly part of the reason for some of the tire choices going horribly wrong this weekend.
• 1:32
  Speaker B: I mean, what didn't go wrong this weekend? Seemingly, yes.
• 1:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker C: I mean, do we want to talk about the race first or do we want to talk about the not race bit that they didn't do that we were all hoping we'd have some wet weather, you know, racing in the wet, but between them waiting for the rain to stop, which is fair enough because did you guys see the medical car going round?
• 1:57
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 1:57
  Speaker C: I mean, I mean it was. I thought that the medical car was going to bin it into the gravel several times as it was going around, but they always leave it too long. You want people, if you want people to be using. I mean, we'll never ever use a wet tire.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: What's the point of even?
• 2:13
  Speaker C: I mean, if they want to go green and, and reduce their carbon footprint, well, stop lugging these blue tires around. You're never going to use them.
• 2:21
  Speaker A: I completely, I completely agree. Like there's no situation when they use it and then if it starts raining and rains heavily, they end up red flagging the race or whatever, stopping it. So, but I mean, so did I
• 2:32
  Speaker B: hear correctly that they, because of the rain that they made like the speed for the formation lap was lower, which Caused all of the software in all these cars because it was like Max and Lewis were having the same problem. You know, their cars are completely different and they're both stopping on the way to the grid. I mean I, it seemed like that maybe it was the lower speed that was just making the cars not accelerate. It was weird.
• 2:58
  Speaker C: Well it, I don't know whether it was, I don't know if they slowed the formation down, formation lap down or not, but it was the fact that this maybe the safety car slowed down quite a lot more to go around the hairpin turn like eight or so. And as everyone got backed up, their turbos despooled and they were going slowly and that seemingly triggered this, this self preservation mode software. It was a software in the software.
• 3:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:30
  Speaker C: But the FIA knew it was there because it is programmed to be in this mode for one minute.
• 3:39
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 3:40
  Speaker C: So everyone was in it for a minute and then they were doing like 20 kilometers an hour or something. I saw a video that someone had and put on Twitter sitting just after that corner and all the cars go through it and then they're all going in formation at like 10 miles an hour. It was so weird. But it was just an utter, utter farce. And then they had to wait for 40 minutes or whatever so that all the teams could download the patch before they could go racing again.
• 4:08
  Speaker A: That's gotta be some pressure. Like I'm an ex software developer, I work in it. But if you're the guy who's been charged with like finding that bug and
• 4:19
  Speaker C: deploying a new version. Well, it's a deployment from 350kW to 250kW and then that solved it.
• 4:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. But I don't know, maybe they know these things at the back of their hands or whatever. But that's not something you expect to do as a IT guy to push out, push into production like as they say, like in real or an F1 driver so millions of people can go ahead. Yeah. And yeah, if you get it wrong, it's bad news. But yeah, it was a, it was a weird situation. So could you imagine if it had
• 4:50
  Speaker C: come, if it had rained in the race and they did that and then cars would just start doing that during the race. They'd have to red flag it straight away, be an awful crash. Probably at some point.
• 5:01
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Speaker C: Someone was coming out of a corner for going slightly faster and had their turbo.
• 5:05
  Speaker A: Sure. I mean as it was, it kind of messed up all the order and they couldn't work out who was where because people were overtaking people behind the safety car. I mean, the safety car was almost lapping cars, and I don't know, it was ridiculous. So they ended up, what, doing three laps? Or some cars did two laps, some cars did three laps.
• 5:25
  Speaker C: And they just went, all right, I mean. Which is. I mean, back into the. Common sense prevailed. They said, hang on. Okay, we'll just. Let's do over.
• 5:32
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:33
  Speaker C: Cause otherwise it would've taken an hour to figure it all out anyway.
• 5:36
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: An interesting side note was that those cars that didn't do a third lap, that just went straight into the pits, ran their engines in the pits to burn off fuel because nobody wants to carry more fuel than they need. So they were sort of trying to calculate how much to run their engine to get their weight down, you know, by one lap's worth of fuel, which is.
• 5:56
  Speaker C: Oh, is that why colapinto was all the way at the front and they had to wheel him the full length of the pit lane back?
• 6:00
  Speaker A: I mean, everybody. It was all a bit. He only did all a bit of a mess, wasn't it?
• 6:04
  Speaker C: It was. It really was.
• 6:06
  Speaker A: But then the restart. I mean, this is what you do, like, when it's a wet race. It's like you want a tire differential. You know, who's done it right, who's made the right choice, who's made the wrong choice. There was definitely a right choice and a wrong choice. Right. Certainly, teams that went on slicks that rolled the dice got that very, very, very wrong.
• 6:25
  Speaker B: I mean, how long were. How long was the break? It was like two hours, Right.
• 6:30
  Speaker C: An hour and a half plus, maybe. I don't know because I wasn't watching it real time. I just f. I just kind of fast forwarded. But I think it was about an hour and a half to two hours.
• 6:38
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get a feel for that either, But I mean, yeah, that. On the restart, they all blasted away on. On inters and everybody on. On slicks just not maxed to the back.
• 6:50
  Speaker B: Max had an awful start.
• 6:52
  Speaker A: Well, he did. That's true. Well, and he lost one. He lost two places, I guess. Not awful in the sense of the slick tire. Awful.
• 6:59
  Speaker B: I mean, once you saw the other guys falling back, I mean, Lewis looked like he was hanging on for a second because he was, like the only one that didn't drop all the way back. Immediate. But it was like two corners later. And he was the best of the slick tires, essentially.
• 7:13
  Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, people often think, oh, it's hot and the track will dry. But it doesn't, it's Asia, it's humid, the air won't take any more water, so it takes a lot longer to drive. I remember a similar situation a couple of years ago in Singapore where they were saying, why is it taking so long for the track to dry? It's like. Well, it's not evaporating because the air's full of water. It takes the cars running over it, it takes the cars running through it and running over it to, to dry, move it.
• 7:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, because it's not going up in the atmosphere, it's just got to go to the sides where they're not driving. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean in the
• 7:55
  Speaker C: end at one point he was what, 53 seconds behind after a couple of blasts.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, because he stayed out. Right. He didn't jump in to go onto wet tires. He's tried to stick it out on the slicks.
• 8:06
  Speaker A: He stuck it out, yeah. Leclerc came in after three laps. Piastri, Hulkenberg, Stroll, Bortoletto, they all came in to change onto Inters but everybody else that started on sticks stuck with it, you know, hoping that eventually there's going to be some sort of crossover point. Yeah.
• 8:23
  Speaker C: The one big difference though is that when there was a virtual safety car, a bunch of people went in and changed off, change their tires as well, but Lewis didn't. Is that, was that right?
• 8:36
  Speaker A: I just read. No, it was a full safety.
• 8:37
  Speaker C: Lewis was on. Oh, that was the full safety car.
• 8:39
  Speaker A: It was a safety Bottas. Bottas was on slicks around about lap eight, lap nine hit the, hit the white line as you do when it's wet and he was into the gravel and it was a full safety car. So the whole like when do they come in to change tires? When do they, when does the crossover happen? All of that jeopardy was sort of went out the window because everybody that was on, on Inters just came in and put on slick tires.
• 9:06
  Speaker C: On lap on slicks. Yeah. And then, but then some people even sl switch their Inters. Maybe. But the point being, I think after that Lewis was the only person who hadn't stopped.
• 9:16
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 9:17
  Speaker C: So, but he was. That meant that his 53 second deficit had gone down. But he still had a lot of cars in front of him.
• 9:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, he was still way down because he was going around behind at safety car speeds and they were doing, yeah, you know, pit stops or whatever. So they only lost, you know, what, whatever the pit stop delta is under a safety car, what, less than 20 seconds?
• 9:34
  Speaker B: Probably, yeah.
• 9:35
  Speaker A: Fifteen seconds, something like that. Including A double stack from Mercedes, which they executed really well.
• 9:42
  Speaker B: Did Red Bull do a double stack as well? I know Liam, or what's his name, Hajar was.
• 9:47
  Speaker A: Must have been close.
• 9:49
  Speaker B: He wasn't that close to the. Like, the three were pretty close. And then Hajar had a couple seconds between them, so they probably stubble stacked as well.
• 9:56
  Speaker A: I think Hajar. Yeah, I think they had more. More time there, but like, Antonelli and Russell came through almost at the same time. But they managed to. Yeah. Execute that.
• 10:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker A: And all.
• 10:06
  Speaker C: All those pit stops seemed to go as well as could be. They're just a great, you know, well oiled machine, these pit crews.
• 10:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker B: And then obviously the safety stage car was out for a bit, but on, I think the restart was lap 13. So it was like, what, six laps? Six or seven laps under the safety car. And then Max was able to have a better restart on the safety car restart and was able to get back ahead. And George also was able to take. Take P2 from Kimmy, who was jeopardized by Max passing him. But ultimately Kimmy was able to get back. Not that. Not that long afterwards. But Max held on from that point on. And then the cute girl at. At work was very happy.
• 10:53
  Speaker A: So some. Some woman walked into the store with a. With an oracle, like, Red Bull top, like a.
• 10:59
  Speaker B: Like the team shirt, you know, like the legit one.
• 11:03
  Speaker A: So you swooped in.
• 11:05
  Speaker B: So I was just walking by. I was in the middle of something that was important that I can't remember anymore, but I just saw it and I was like, oh, nice F1 fan. So we just started talking and she said she was interested in the podcast, and I got a vibe going, you know, I mean, that could be. I could be wrong, but I was in a hurry, so I was like, I ran off to go do what I could do, and then I came back and we had this, like, author signing in. So she was talking to her. So I was like, all right, I'm not gonna interrupt that. So I went and did a loop and then she was gone. No good.
• 11:32
  Speaker A: Did you tell you. Did you. Did she say she was a listener or that you just told her to listen?
• 11:37
  Speaker B: No, she said, we just started talking about F1. I was like, yeah, I have a podcast. And she said she wanted to listen to it, so I gave her that information.
• 11:46
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right. There you go.
• 11:48
  Speaker C: So if you are listening, young lady, the Riz was chatting with Mr. Jason. Reach out, ping us on our socials, or just go back into the store and find him.
• 12:01
  Speaker B: I'll be there every Saturday.
• 12:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, yeah, Verstappen, what. He went from third to first and Antonelli was. The reverse. Right. First to third at the restart, it took him. Well, lap 21, I think Antonelli took. Took Russell.
• 12:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, because George got by. I think maybe he just fired his tires up a little bit quicker than Kimmy did. So he got by. But then, you know, there's been a pace gap between those two, you know, a little bit. And so Kimmy was able. Kimmy was on the radio saying, I can go faster. His pit crew said, well, the pit wall said, yeah, we'll see if we can do something different, like from a strategy persp. But a couple of laps later, Kimmy just put a move on that stuck. I don't know if that was some discussion that we didn't hear over the radio saying, you're racing, because no one seemed to be too fussed about it afterwards. But Kimmy got by. But by then, I think max was probably 8 seconds or so further up the road, which was a bit of an uphill battle for Antonelli and.
• 13:13
  Speaker A: And the whole time, like, Hamilton was just car carving his way through the field, Right. He was just making pass after pass after pass, I mean, and leclerc to some degree, but, I mean, Hamilton was definitely the star of the show from that perspective. I mean, Verstappen was out in front, he can't pass anyone. Right. But when. When he was back there, Hamilton just had. I mean, what could. What could have been, I guess, is. Is the question.
• 13:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, Charles kind of lived in the shadow a little bit of Lewis, despite the fact that he did just as well coming through the field as.
• 13:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, they both finished third and fourth at the end of the day. But, yeah, Lewis got a few more of the plaudits, I guess he did stay out there on the slicks, whereas Leclerc came in. So maybe he was working a lot harder early on on those tyres. But, yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, I'm not kidding myself. I don't think Ferrari could have won the race necessarily, but it's crazy to think that they came all the way back to third from where they were after nine laps.
• 14:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it was great, but I mean, after that, I mean, we didn't get much until really, Alex retired. Right. I mean, there wasn't really much going on in the. In the middle there. There was some battles like Liam was fighting in there. There were some guys in, like, the bottom of the top 10 that were battling.
• 14:31
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I Mean, Liam put a move on Max off the start, didn't he?
• 14:35
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, at the very beginning.
• 14:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, he was right there.
• 14:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, he jumped seven spots on that first start.
• 14:41
  Speaker A: He was, he had probably, yeah, the best start and was challenging Max at the very beginning. But Max just did what Max does and just squeezed him out through the corners, whether it was like inside, outside, as they, as they moved left and right. But yeah, the two safety cars sort of like took away any of, the, sort of a little bit of the strategy. Right. Everybody did do a pit stop in the middle, like around like late 20s, early 30s, but it didn't mess with the order that much.
• 15:10
  Speaker B: No.
• 15:12
  Speaker C: Do you have the tire charts and who took what on which pit stop and who did how many pit stops? Because I think Perez did like 10, or was it seven pit stops?
• 15:23
  Speaker A: Did 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 pit stops? Yes.
• 15:27
  Speaker B: Oh my God. And Bottas had one.
• 15:32
  Speaker A: Why did he, why did Perez, Perez stopped on 18 to switch.
• 15:36
  Speaker C: Didn't he stop after the formation lap?
• 15:39
  Speaker B: Huh?
• 15:40
  Speaker C: Didn't he stop after the formation lap?
• 15:42
  Speaker A: He did, he, Perez started on, started on softs like when other people were starting on soft, like Hamilton started on soft right when they did the actual start, but then went straight onto inters, then went back to, then Perez went back to mediums when everybody else did on lap nine. And then on lap 18 he switched off the medium to hards. Then three laps later there must have been a problem with that set of tires because he came back in on 21 and went to another set of hards which only lasted till lap 39 it looks like. And then he, yeah, then he decided to pit again with everybody else on lap 44 with this Carlos Sainz safety car. So yeah, I missed that he had done so, but he stopped. Yeah, he, he did the most, I mean most people did, yeah, three. Hamilton only two because he stuck, stuck it out on slicks.
• 16:30
  Speaker B: I mean, in your defense, they're not really showing Cadillac unless they're crashing into the wall. That's really the only time you see Cadillac.
• 16:38
  Speaker A: They're just trying to get all the data they can. Maybe. So it doesn't, it doesn't really matter, you know what happens. And then of course Russell, you know, when Carlos Sainz, his car died, went for the restart and then Russell's car just gave up on him. What was the reason he's this car? Just the power, just, he said it
• 16:57
  Speaker C: was a power unit.
• 16:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:59
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 17:00
  Speaker B: And I mean, and then Lando almost killed like five people, right?
• 17:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, he must have Been. He was. He was. He was looking at George's car by the side.
• 17:11
  Speaker C: Looking at George's car by the side of the road and then looked up. Don't text and drive.
• 17:16
  Speaker A: He was like, robin neck.
• 17:17
  Speaker C: You look up and it's like, oh, no. Yeah, Robin necking.
• 17:20
  Speaker A: And he was probably like, he was updating, like, you know when you drive along and you update ways and you click the lock button to say, you know, car on side of the road or something like that. He was just like, alerting other drivers to object on road. Watch out. Oh, crap. Yeah.
• 17:38
  Speaker C: Car by the side of the road. Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker A: And he just piled off. But then what's the rules there? Then if somebody piles off the road under safety car conditions, you just. You're just allowed to pass them. Because obviously, under normal conditions, you're not supposed to pass cars, but at some point that car becomes passable. Right. Once you're fully off the track, just go ahead.
• 17:56
  Speaker C: Once you're having. Once you're not under, like, normal condition, like George pulled to the side of the road, as soon as he's off the track, then you can go by,
• 18:06
  Speaker A: you can buy by. But then I'm saying about people going by Norris. Right, Because Norris kept going.
• 18:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, same. Same deal.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: Just keep. Just quick, everybody pile through. I mean, this is the second weekend in a row that McLaren, like, post safety car I've had. Shocking situation. Right.
• 18:21
  Speaker B: That was mid safety car.
• 18:23
  Speaker A: Well, it was. It was. Piastri went off.
• 18:27
  Speaker C: Yeah. And extended the safety car by what, one, maybe two laps. But the thing for me, after that safety car. Well, during that safety car, they let lapped cars overtake and then away. I. I think it was. I forget who it was that was unlapping themselves. But it took Perez so long to come through the field, and then when he did finally pass the safety car, it just stuck. It was just at the start of another lap. And as we all know from Abu Dhabi, once you allow lap carves to overtake, as soon as the last lap car is round, you have to do one more lap. So it extended the safety car like an extra lap. And then George. And then George suffered his failure, which sent them out on another lap. And it's like, how long are we going to sit behind the safety car tires losing their temperature on what was at this point a dry track? Anyway. But it just meant that, you know, maybe the restart would be exciting.
• 19:34
  Speaker B: But it wasn't.
• 19:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:35
  Speaker C: Anyway,
• 19:39
  Speaker B: Max just flew away.
• 19:42
  Speaker C: But, you know, on the subject of. Of George, it's over now, really, isn't it? 84 points with 6ish races to go.
• 19:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, 6 or 7, depending on. Yeah. What they end up doing.
• 19:55
  Speaker C: And now, you know, I mean, his one saving grace could be that Max might be taking points away, you know, in which case you've got the difference. If Kimmy was winning the race, it would always be like a bigger chunk of points to be behind. Maybe it's. Well, it's just prolonging the inevitable if Max does take points away. But it, you know, the championship's over now, all by the shouting. It's just a case of which race we think it's going to happen.
• 20:22
  Speaker B: What, 84 point gap now?
• 20:25
  Speaker A: 84 point gap? Yeah. With seven or six races to go, depending on. If they end up running the rescheduled, they might even be less.
• 20:34
  Speaker B: He'd have to retire half of those. Right.
• 20:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they've still got to go back to, you know, an area of conflict, you know, with.
• 20:41
  Speaker C: That's true with Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
• 20:44
  Speaker A: And Qatar at the end.
• 20:45
  Speaker B: Have we heard anything about that yet? I haven't.
• 20:49
  Speaker A: I haven't seen anything.
• 20:49
  Speaker C: Nothing's been said. There's still rumors that they're exploring Imola, but nothing's really been said because if that's not the case, then the last race of the season would. The Brazil.
• 21:04
  Speaker B: That would be pretty cool. It must be.
• 21:07
  Speaker A: Or Las Vegas is after Brazil, Vegas is after Brazil, Las Vegas on 22 November and then it's Qatar on the 27th and Abu Dhabi on the 4th of December.
• 21:20
  Speaker B: If they run it, I mean, if they're doing Imola. If they're doing Imola the same weekend as one of those, they'd have to tell us pretty soon, wouldn't they?
• 21:30
  Speaker A: I mean. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? It's a bit of a mess, isn't it?
• 21:37
  Speaker C: Yes, it is.
• 21:39
  Speaker A: I mean, yeah, this isn't a political podcast, but I don't see nothing seems to be happening between, like, the. The conflict coming to an end, whatever that might be. But maybe it's quiet enough. They're not really firing missiles at each other right now, but. Yeah,
• 21:55
  Speaker B: yeah. I mean, I mean, they'd probably be okay, but do you want to take that risk?
• 22:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:02
  Speaker C: It's quite a risk to take.
• 22:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:05
  Speaker C: Isn't it?
• 22:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:08
  Speaker C: But it's one person we haven't talked about. Was the. The legend that came in eighth?
• 22:16
  Speaker A: Yes. Amazing.
• 22:18
  Speaker B: Fernando.
• 22:21
  Speaker C: Fernando Alonso coming in eighth. Was that four points for. For the Aston Martin.
• 22:28
  Speaker B: That's right, yeah. Was that their first or. I Guess Lance scored a point right before this.
• 22:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, they scored points already a couple times.
• 22:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. But this was their best result of the season for sure. I mean, and Stroll not in the top 10, but full, full Grand Prix,
• 22:44
  Speaker C: you know, full Grand Prix finish was a second or third of the season. It's been an awful run, isn't it?
• 22:50
  Speaker B: The bar is so low for Lance Stroll that we're, we're praising him for finishing.
• 22:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, but he beat like Colapinto. Right. Who's had a good season so far, you would argue. Right.
• 23:02
  Speaker B: When he's not crashing into his teammate.
• 23:04
  Speaker A: Crashing, you know, Ocon, you know, Gas's been on pole position, you know, in earlier races and he finished behind Stroll. So maybe they found something. I don't know. Not sure. Did they bring upgrades or is it just the way the car happened to work with the weird, you know, wet, dry.
• 23:23
  Speaker C: I, Yeah, I think it's a lot, the condition, but also it's not a huge power circuit so that their, you know, their Honda engine wasn't giving them too much of a disadvantage. But speaking of upgrades, Mercedes came into the weekend with their first suite of upgrades since Canada.
• 23:43
  Speaker A: Really?
• 23:43
  Speaker C: And that didn't really seem to work.
• 23:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:47
  Speaker C: Whether that's track specific or not, I don't know that there was like, discussion amongst the, well, the techie folks and the dorks and the readers who read the dorks like me about how the rough surface of the track impacted their aerodynamics, which is a bit weird.
• 24:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 24:10
  Speaker C: Like porpoises seemingly know in that when you go over a rough track and the air is passing underneath, the buffer of air that forms on the underside of the car when it's going over a rougher surface versus a smooth is bigger, which means that there's less gap for the air to flow under the car, which is incredibly boring, but seemingly had a. Had an impact on some of the cars. And with all of the problems that that Red Bull had with this kind of crazy arrow. Degrading, I think they're calling it over the course of the season that they, they think that the way that they've. The reason that they were so much better than everyone else this time around was because they've. They've got quite a rigid car, which is why it's terrible over the bumps, which is why it's probably going to be terrible in Singapore. So don't.
• 25:00
  Speaker B: I'm.
• 25:01
  Speaker C: I'm not expecting them. Well, my, this theory that I have means that Max isn't going to win in Singapore and McLaren will be much better in Singapore than they were here. So you can, you can call me wrong if, If Max wins next week.
• 25:18
  Speaker A: Well, McLaren just got to get their safety car restarts sorted out and then maybe they'll do better, but.
• 25:26
  Speaker C: And they also need to figure out why Lando is losing about 2/10 of a second to Oscar Piastri down the straights. Because his power unit won't give out as much juice. Have you heard about that one?
• 25:37
  Speaker B: No.
• 25:38
  Speaker C: Yeah. No. Stella apparently is. Everyone's super confused about how his engine is just not putting in, you know, Basically Lando's losing a ton of time on the straights to his own teammate and no one knows why.
• 25:52
  Speaker B: It's very odd. Well, and I guess Botas is on his way to the next race right now, isn't he?
• 26:00
  Speaker A: He's riding his bike.
• 26:01
  Speaker C: He's somewhere by Malacca, maybe. I don't know. He's riding his bike down from. From KL to Singapore.
• 26:09
  Speaker B: That's pretty badass, I have to say.
• 26:11
  Speaker A: He just, he. He dances to his own beat, doesn't he? Bot ass anything normally, but good for him.
• 26:20
  Speaker B: It's very cool.
• 26:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I mean, he's legitimately entered, like, triathlons and bike races and, and won them or done very well, I believe.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker C: I think he's actually qualified for a world championship event, but it's this weekend, so he's going to be in Singapore, so he can't go back to Finland or to wherever it is to compete in it, but he's got a good training partner. His missus is Tiffany Cromwell, who's a professional cyclist. And if you follow him on any of the socials, you'll always see that when he's not racing, he's off cycling somewhere.
• 26:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's very cool. I mean, it's all on, like, the beaten path. It looks like all the pictures I've seen, it's like all dirt roads through the country. It's very cool. Well, I think that's. I mean, I think we've, we've touched most of the. The race highlights, I guess. That unfortunately will bring us to Coup's F1.
• 27:19
  Speaker A: Jason, you just been. You've been needing CoopSep1 updates for a few weeks now. You got to lock in, Jason, as my kids would say. You got to get it together.
• 27:29
  Speaker B: Come on, I need a race. Not at like three in the morning so I can, you know, watch everything.
• 27:33
  Speaker A: Well, Singapore's not going to help you with that, I don't think, is it? Well, it's a little bit later.
• 27:38
  Speaker C: It's a night race. It's going to be on at 8:00am yeah.
• 27:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's right on the east coast here. Yeah. Because it's sort of. That's the one where Singapore is the one where people like, they stay on, you know, European time. But I guess the fact that it's back to back with Malaysia, they didn't really do that this year.
• 27:53
  Speaker B: Clearly Vegas is like that too, right?
• 27:56
  Speaker A: Yeah. But yes. Top scores this week. Liam. Liam Ducey. Is that how you pronounce that? 270 points. Heiti 08255 and Bunny Warren 240. Overall standings. Beaver Taro up one spot to first. Matt D up four spots to second and Shumi One up five points to third. Third. Jay Lazzie just continues the slide. Two spots down to 12th. Right beneath, right underneath Toto's underbrush.
• 28:29
  Speaker B: It's never where you want to be.
• 28:32
  Speaker A: We're back talking about Toto's undervush again after they. They came, they rose four places to 11th and Nick slipped five places to 43rd. Did I manage to hold on to the top 100? I did not. Down 11.
• 28:46
  Speaker C: Well, you know how I thought that Max was going to be good in Baku and I put him to win. I then forgot it was in Malaysia or lost track of time and didn't put my picks in. So at least I got 40 points for Max's win. But I didn't really score very much for the rest of the picks aren't too bad.
• 29:05
  Speaker A: You had a whole bunch of like 25s. Kimmy one spot out. Lewis one spot out. Charles one spot out.
• 29:12
  Speaker C: But then I had the alpines in there because I knew that they were going to be better in Baku and I wouldn't have put them in in Malaysia.
• 29:17
  Speaker A: Coulda, coulda, woulda, shoulda. But you know, that's the way.
• 29:20
  Speaker C: But they took themselves out anyway in Paku so I lost out there too.
• 29:24
  Speaker A: But we go again. No time to rest. Singapore, under the lights. Street circuit. Right.
• 29:31
  Speaker B: And is it a sprint? It's a sprint race weekend too.
• 29:34
  Speaker C: It is a sprint. It's the last one of the season.
• 29:37
  Speaker B: So strange.
• 29:37
  Speaker C: Brazil doesn't have really thought. No, not this year. But I. Which is because that's a classic sprint circuit. I don't know. Has there ever been one in Singapore?
• 29:49
  Speaker B: I don't think so.
• 29:50
  Speaker C: They're having one. Great.
• 29:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. Could be. Could be a safety car. Right. With this, with the street circuit, there's always a chance that, you know, I
• 29:59
  Speaker B: think it's all but one race. There has had a safety car. Right. Like it was like 100% one race that has not. Correct. And that was like last year.
• 30:09
  Speaker C: And the one thing that's going to be slightly weird is also that the sprint race, because it starts at like 5 o', clock, 6 o'. Clock. In the place of where free practice, which practice 3 would normally have been.
• 30:23
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 30:24
  Speaker C: They're going to be racing during daylight for the first time in Singapore.
• 30:30
  Speaker A: Interesting. So averages means even hotter probably.
• 30:34
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 30:36
  Speaker B: But less humid, right? You would think. I mean, still going to be fucking humid.
• 30:40
  Speaker A: But it's humid all the time, isn't it, Nick, you lived there for three years. It's just hot and humid every day.
• 30:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've been to Malaysia. It's pretty fucking humid there too. It's pretty GROSS.
• 30:52
  Speaker A: You're only 4 degrees off the equator, so I don't think they really have seasons. It just the same all year round.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: Hot and muggy all year round. Thanks for listening to the Undercuts review of the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time for our review of the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix. We'll.