Latest / The Undercut / Kimi Wins Back to Back and the "Max" of it All - 2026 Japanese Grand Prix Review

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Kimi Wins Back to Back and the "Max" of it All - 2026 Japanese Grand Prix Review · The Undercut

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:08
  Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen and enjoy the show. 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. All right, guys. Well, round three is in the books, the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix. And I don't know if this is really the best place to start, but because we're recording a little bit later, obviously all the news that has been talked about over the past couple days is the max of it all. I mean, we've heard rumblings of him thinking about leaving the sport early for years, but they haven't, you know, that he. A car that he is not obviously not happy with. And it seems that the talks of him retiring have ramped up after this performance.
• 1:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, he. I think it. It's really. The BBC, um, 5 Live presenter Jenny Gao was doing, like, recordings for BBC. Like, I don't know if you listen to the BBC's channel podcast, but she was recording for that. And, man, he, he. I don't know how. If he'd kind of answered the question slightly differently before. And. And then he. But he, yeah, he kind of came out and was like, yeah, I've got other things going on in my life right now and I've made a lot of money. Do I really need to be doing things I don't like doing? Kind of see his point. I mean, I don't think. I don't think it's because he's got an uncompetitive car.
• 1:59
  Speaker B: Right.
• 2:00
  Speaker A: Because he's racing, I mean, racing in the midfield. But, you know, him and. Him and Gasly were close the whole race. And, you know, as long as you're racing somebody as a racing driver, I'm sure you're enjoying it. Right? Granted, he came off second best in that battle, but I just think the challenge isn't there for him in the way that he wants it, which a lot of the drivers have spoken up about, especially with qualifying, is it's not the guy with the biggest waivers anymore. Right. It's who can figure out the deployment thing and, you know, back off going through the S's and back off going through 130R, which is the heart and soul of the Suzuka track. Right. So that they don't run out of energy. You know, I guess the part that has been enjoyable has been how close the racing has been when cars are close together, but most of the passes have just been hit the button and blow by. It's just in new places, places it wasn't previously. But it's still somewhat artificial because you just hit the button and you go by. Depending on where you hit the button, you're probably going to get overtaken on the next area where you're going to run out of battery, which is what's happened a couple of times. It happened in the race with George and Oscar. At the start, you know, George got past Oscar but used his battery to do so. And then Oscar got back again in front and then kind of realize that's okay. Now I figure out what I need to do. So, yeah, I think it's just he's not enjoying himself and I mean, like you said earlier, he's always been rabbiting on about I'm not going to be doing this when I'm 40 years old and all that sort of stuff. He's like, yeah, okay, fine, we get it. I don't know, is he done with F1 or is he just bored with it and doesn't like it? I'd be interested to see what happens if he. I think there's definitely a prospect that he's not here next year. Not on the grid next year. Whether that's a permanent thing or a sabbatical. Take a year off and see what the FIA do to improve things in 2028. Because obviously they're meeting on the 9th of April to talk about things they could do this year. They'll obviously talk about things that they want to do next year. Is that next year plan gonna be enough or drastic enough to make the racing any more like what Max wants? I don't know.
• 4:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I. I hope that you're right that it's not just because he has a bad car, but I'm kind of leaning towards that. It is because, I mean, the beginning of last year he was miserable and he was doing the same shit. Maybe not as aggressively as he is now with such. With such a big regulation change, but when their car got improved and then he was in the championship fight, he was happy again. So I don't know.
• 4:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, but you can't know. I think I did listen to the BBC check his Flag podcast. He actually did sound quite sincere about it. The way he was talking, it wasn't like he wasn't like blustery or trying to prove a point. It was just saying something pretty frankly, actually. But we'll see I mean, I think that if he doesn't finish in the top two this year, I think his Red Bull contracts void.
• 5:34
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:34
  Speaker A: I think that he gets out of that contract. I think there's still another year left to run on it. But there's the performance clause, which. Which he clearly is not going to hit you. So he'll have his pick of what he wants to do. You know, Mercedes, obviously, they're looking very, very strong now. Is that going to be the case? McLaren, solid weekend for McLaren. I mean, Oscar in particular, Lando had some trouble in getting some laps in. I think that definitely set him back. Because the car, when you're not doing the laps, the car is not learning the lap, which, as I'm kind of hearing more about it, there's a lot more sort of AI involved in teaching the car the lap so that it deploys per the program. Right. And if you're not running enough in practice, then obviously you're on the back foot the whole weekend in terms of your deployment pattern. But, you know, Oscar, first racing start. Well, first Grand Prix start of the year, and, yeah, did a decent job.
• 6:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, was he in for a chance at the win before the safety car? I think.
• 6:47
  Speaker A: I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think he had the measure of George. Obviously. George had that problem in qualifying, which was really a setup thing. They. After FP3, they decided to change his setup in a way that was horrible in qualifying and was giving him a lot of oversteer. And that was obviously, that meant that he didn't qualify where he should have been and he was hampered during the race. So I think once we saw Piastri figure out where George was going to make moves based on power and how he could get back past, I think he had the measure of him. And it would have been interesting to see where Antonelli came back to absent the safety car and whether that would have been then something that they had to figure out. With Mercedes, especially trying to hunt Piastri down, it would have made the race pretty interesting, a lot more interesting than it ultimately ended up being. But I think that McLaren have just got a car that's just a little underdeveloped. They didn't, you know, obviously they were pushing for the title last year and so didn't put every resource into getting this car where it needed to be. But it seems like fundamentally it's pretty decent.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: Did they bring an upgrade to this race? I didn't hear anything about an upgrade, but it, I mean, like.
• 8:05
  Speaker A: Well, they don't know if they've got upgrades or not because they didn't run
• 8:08
  Speaker B: in the last race.
• 8:09
  Speaker A: How could it be an upgrade?
• 8:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. All right. So yeah, they could have been this good in the last race and we have no idea.
• 8:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I do think that obviously Suzuka is quite a unique challenge. I mean everyone says it's like, oh, this track is a unique challenge or that track is a unique challenge. But. But Suzuka is kind of unique in that it's just a lot of fast corners. I mean this is for not a Ferrari circuit. Ferrari haven't gone here well at all. Generally it definitely punishes heavy cars because there's a lot of elevation change. One thing you don't really notice on the tv, but you really notice when you're there. It's really hilly, you know, especially coming up through the S's. It's uphill the whole way and then down from the last chicane all the way down that hill down the start finish. You don't really realize how steep that is until you're there. So it does punish heavy cars, which is obviously not to Red Bull's liking. I think Red Bull got a pretty heavy car and obviously Williams.
• 9:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think I, I think it was Jensen Button that was talking about how the. Like you said, the starting line is also slightly downhill. Not quite as much as everything leading up to the, that final straight or the starting straight, however you want to look at it. But it should be better for the starts for the Mercedes. And Kimmy obviously had a fantastic race. Safety car helped, but he had an awful start again. George's was a little better. But Kimmy, what went from P1 to P6.
• 9:48
  Speaker A: P6. Yeah. And, and that's why everyone's talking. Oh, Kimmy, great race. Wasn't though. He went he off the start. He went down to sixth like at the end of this season or maybe even when they come back from Miami. If you dropped a six off the start, there could be no coming back from that. He benefited quite significantly and not to diminish what he's done, he's won two back to back races before. George has ever won two back to back races. Right. Youngest ever hole sitter, second youngest race winner. I mean he's doing a very, very good job. But he really did not get off the line. Well, that's what, three out of the four race starts. He's messed up obviously China, he got off well and won the race. But you can't count on that kind of advantage in the car to Pull you back or to get the look of the draw on the safety cars.
• 10:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, all things considered, he. He doesn't care about all that in the end, does he? He gets the points. He's the championship leader. Is he the young, youngest championship leader in history? That. Is that correct?
• 11:00
  Speaker A: He. He is. He's the first teenager to lead the world championship. What were you doing when you were 19? I don't want to talk about it
• 11:08
  Speaker B: on a podcast, that's for sure. At least not this one. Maybe. Maybe another one.
• 11:15
  Speaker A: I was, Yeah, I was a. I was in my first year at university and just like, just in the bar all the time. That was kind of it. Like lectures and. Yes.
• 11:24
  Speaker B: I don't remember much from that first year of college, but also enjoyed myself. So. Yeah, I mean, great for. For Kimmy. Disappointing for George, obviously. I mean, just bad luck, I guess. Um, but he. He seemed kind of a step behind most of the weekend up until.
• 11:47
  Speaker A: Well,
• 11:50
  Speaker B: I get. I mean, I guess he was a step behind the whole time, wasn't he? And he didn't finish one too?
• 11:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, no. I mean, at one point after the safety car, Russell was down. Was he in fifth at some point? Obviously. Back, back. No, because.
• 12:10
  Speaker B: What.
• 12:11
  Speaker A: He finished fourth, so obviously. But Lewis was in third at that point, so maybe he's a little further back. But yeah, the. I mean, we've obviously, we've talked about Kimmy a little bit. You know, he didn't really put a foot wrong other than that start. But the big turning point obviously of the race was the crash. Ollie Bearman and Franco Colapinto. I don't necessarily think that Colapinto did anything too wrong. I mean, he was taking a normal, somewhat defensive line. Maybe he was looking. Wasn't looking in his mirrors maybe because he's, you know, his car slowed down. Maybe he's looking his steering wheel, figuring out what was going on. Ollie Bearman obviously had like 50 kilometers an hour more speed. Didn't realize quite how much slower Colapinto was going and had to get on the grass. And once he got on the grass, he was going sideways pretty quickly and a big shunt, 50g impact. And you saw him getting out the car and like hobbling over to the marshal's hut. He looked like that was a proper hit.
• 13:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, that sucks. I mean, obviously that runs his, you know, continuous point scoring races and he dropped. What was he like, fifth in the championship before this race weekend? I mean, he didn't.
• 13:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, he was fifth. Yeah, he finished fifth in both races. And he's was fifth in the championship, so. But he had been struggling. I think there was a bit of a glitch on his car during qualifying which meant he didn't get out of. Did he get a Q1? I think he got. I think he was out in Q1. I think he was like 17th, 16th. I. I don't know. I can't remember where they draw the line now anyway. But he obviously qualified down the pack and was trying to fight his way to the front. But, yeah, he's dropped back.
• 14:15
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, I, I think that he probably was on a crazy. He was obviously getting talked about a lot with the performances that he's had in the first two and a half races before this. I think it's good that it's maybe pumped the brakes a bit early on in the season because I didn't think that Haas would be able to keep up that momentum. But still, that's a tough way for that momentum to break in into the wall. And I hope he's okay.
• 14:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that. Yeah, I mean, it was a big shot. There's going to be a meeting. The FIA have got to talk about it. You know, it's the, it's the thing, you know, obviously us as fans, the thing that we're talking about probably more is the Max Verstappen comments around. Is he going to be around? But those in the sport, they're all talking about this accident. They're all talking about the speed differentials. It's something that people have been trying to point out and have been saying, this could be a problem. Now if, If Bearman had not gone all the way to the left, he could have clipped Weirs, he could have been airborne. There was a Porsche super cup car just before qualifying. No. Was it? No, it was just before the race. The race was delayed by 10. Yeah. I just watched it in replay, so I didn't actually. I wasn't awake to notice that beforehand where a Porsche super cup car went, it went through the barriers at a much slower speed. Right. This is. Yeah. The fact that this, I mean, all comes down to this engine formula. They had this aspirational, oh, we're going to do 50, 50. And we've talked about it before, so we don't want to go and ad nauseam, but it was a massive misstep. It's caused, I mean, basically every problem with the current formula, whether it be from a safety perspective, just a spectacle perspective, from a driver enjoyment perspective, from a. Just what the hell is going on? What Is it that we're actually watching? Perspective all comes down from the fact that someone decided it would be such a great idea to go 5050 on the power to electrical. They wanted Audi's money. They thought that this was the way to get it, and they just. To hell with the consequences. Make all these other try and solve their way out of it, rather than actually admitting that they were wrong.
• 16:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's too late now.
• 16:52
  Speaker A: They can't.
• 16:53
  Speaker B: At least for this year.
• 16:55
  Speaker A: I mean, they can't change it this year. They can't change it this year and probably not next year. But if what they do this year and how they start next year, I don't know, I'd be curious to see. I mean, the viewing statistics that you see quoted are never given with context. Like, they say it's x percent down. Well, it's Japan. So if you're talking about. If you're comparing the stats of people watching, like the Monaco Grand Prix or one of the US Races or something like that versus a race in the middle of the night, course you're gonna see fewer people, right?
• 17:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, just psychos, like, staying up to watch.
• 17:37
  Speaker A: I don't know. Yeah, but I don't know. It's. I mean, I'm certainly getting frustrated with. With it because it's. It's not the test that it should be. It's not the racing that it should be. And it's.
• 17:51
  Speaker B: You know what?
• 17:51
  Speaker A: They're trying to make every race, like, amazing. Right? They're trying to, like, every. Every great band has a terrible album somewhere along the line. Every great album has a. Has some duff tracks, I would say, even the Beatles. Right. I'm British. I'm allowed to.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: Right.
• 18:15
  Speaker A: Don't try and make, like, everything. You're gonna make the Avengers movies, right? And the Avengers movies are mindless crap that people like because there's explosions and all that sort of stuff. But that's for people that like that kind of movie, not people who love movies. Right. People watch F1 because they watch F1. Maybe I'm just old. I mean, maybe people have a difference of opinion.
• 18:47
  Speaker B: But that's my thing that. I disagreed with you the first couple races. Um, I'm starting to come around to your thinking. I'm definitely in the middle right now. I think that that Kala Pinto slowing down kind of opened my eyes to the dangers of it. And we don't want to be in a situation where there are drivers dying again. Um, and that was really dangerous. I mean, I've seen some awful crashes in My limited time watching the Sport, you know, 10 years or whatever it is, but that is one of the worst I've seen and I'm glad that everybody was okay, like I said. And it seems just like an oversight that they didn't realize that this was a possibility, that this could happen.
• 19:37
  Speaker A: Well, everyone told them that it would be, but they buried their head in the sand and they say, ah, it won't be worst case scenario. Well, you don't need, you don't want a worst case scenario. You just. It just needs to be a bad scenario. This is kind of a bad scenario.
• 19:59
  Speaker B: Well, I guess, I mean, we'll see if they. How soon they make changes and what they will be. I mean, we talked briefly about Pierre. Obviously he had another incredible race. He has amazing and I'm happy for him. I can't say that I was the biggest Pierre fan. I like him as a guy. I just didn't know if he was that kind of driver or not. And he has stepped up big time this year so far.
• 20:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, if you, if you look across the grid, granted we're only three Grand Prix in, right, you look, obviously Alonso is way better than Stroll, but then you look at the other teams, other than Alonso being way better than Stroll. The driver that is like totally outpacing and outperforming their teammate is Pierre. I would have said Ollie Bearman as well, but OCON had a decent race this weekend and it wasn't too bad last week, but Pierre is just, you know, really showing Colapinto up and I like to see that. I'm a Pierre fan.
• 21:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's good and you know, it's just nice to see that team doing well. Even though I can't stand what's his name. I'm just totally blanked on his name.
• 21:31
  Speaker A: Thank you, Big Flav.
• 21:35
  Speaker B: He's going to get Otmar to come back. We all want to see Otmar.
• 21:40
  Speaker A: We, we do. I mean, I like Otmar. I think he's been away probably a bit too long now, but who knows.
• 21:49
  Speaker B: There's a.
• 21:50
  Speaker A: Obviously a, A team principal opening at Aston Martin, but he's already been there and he's. I don't think he's going to go back there after how Lara Stroll did that, but obviously that was, you know, no one need to kind of move on to the next topic like super quickly. But obviously the big news going into the weekend was Jonathan Wheatley leaving Audi off the back of rumors that Aston Martin were approaching him for the team principal's position. Nothing's obviously been confirmed there on the Aston Martin side, but it got to the point where I guess the Audi board said, yeah, we can't. If you can't be our team principal, if, if this is kind of really going to be the case that you can talk to these people, especially after you've only been in his seat for like a year and a bit and, you know, so interesting. I mean, I think it's a foregone conclusion he'll end up understand the decision
• 22:46
  Speaker B: why he would make that move.
• 22:50
  Speaker A: Lots and lots of Lawrence Strolls.
• 22:53
  Speaker B: Does Audi not have that money?
• 22:58
  Speaker A: Yes, they do have a lot of money, but are they willing to give it to one guy in the same way Laura Stroll will just say, right, check in there. You know, our team's not where it needs to be. We need someone to come in and like whip everyone into shape and get the execution done because they've got the technical mind. It's just the execution side that they just haven't. They don't have someone who is driving that perfection they need to get. And that's really Wheatley's.
• 23:21
  Speaker B: I guess I would go for after IOH Komatsu. That's who I would go for.
• 23:28
  Speaker A: Oof. Yeah, I mean, that'd be a bold move. I do, I like IO a lot. I think he's done. I mean, as much as we love Gunter. We love Gunter, but Aya's done just such a great job with, you know, the smallest team on the grid and we, you know, we were talking about Haas before and one point that I was going to mention but kind of we skipped over is that they're the smallest team on the grid. They, they've shown that they can deliver a good car. They always typically fall down in that they don't have the development budget to keep up the upgrades coming throughout the year, which is a shame for them that there's now this break. You know, there are two teams that don't want this break to happen right now. Mercedes, because they need to make hay while everyone else is still playing catch up, and Haas because they're not going to win in the arms ra race later in the season and they will inevitably fall back behind the likes of certainly Alpine looking good, but definitely McLaren and Red Bull typically can come back stronger throughout the year.
• 24:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, probably. Although, I mean, I do find it odd that at this point, I mean, how long have they been in the sport now? 10 years plus. Right. Like, they shouldn't be short on money at, at the, the where the sport is now and They've been in it this long. I understood originally they had trouble getting sponsors and all that, but it seems that none of the teams have trouble getting sponsors now. The sport is as popular as it's been in a really long time, if ever. And I like that they're still a small team and they have that feel to them. But like, I don't feel like they should be short on. On money for upgrades. That seems odd to me.
• 25:15
  Speaker A: I. Yeah, I think it's who controls the budget.
• 25:26
  Speaker B: I mean, I guess the losers that we haven't spoken about yet would be. We spoke briefly on Williams, but they seem to be going to be losers almost every weekend.
• 25:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they've got a heavy car. Like I said, this punishes a heavy car. Alex Albon basically did a test session. How many times did he stop? Like four times. Do you have four pit stops?
• 25:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. It was.
• 25:50
  Speaker A: They were just going in, fiddling with stuff and sending him back out. Kind of like what Aston Martin did last time out. Speaking of Aston Martin, a loser, but kind of a winner because Fernando did cross the finish line.
• 26:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. That's brutal.
• 26:07
  Speaker A: That. That's the winning loser. Yeah, yeah. Liam Wilson. Oh, that. We're still on the losers, right? We're still on the losers.
• 26:20
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, I guess that goes both ways, right, because what's his name? Lind. Vlad has been the standout at least through the first race and sprint, but it's really tempered down since then, like you were saying. And Liam has been the better of the two in the last two races.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: Now he's had two. He's had two good races, I think, you know, pretty unspectacular, but that's. It's. The midfield is kind of unspectacular, just, you know, scoring some points, going about his business, re establishing his, you know, just basically getting his mojo back. I think, you know, last season was a brute. It was brutal for him. He's coming to the season. Had a bit of a shaky start, but he's just steadied the ship and gone about his business. I think he's done a good job. No, I think that the. I think the Red Bull stable are in a pretty decent spot right now, absent Max leaving.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Right.
• 27:22
  Speaker A: But Isaac Hajar, he's, you know, out qualified. Max, he's getting himself. I mean, he's making the second driver conversation kind of go away, which is basically his primary objective on the year.
• 27:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, they're not talking about the second seat like you said. They're not talking about the second seat at all, really.
• 27:47
  Speaker A: They're talking about the first seat, right?
• 27:49
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, all the talk is on Max's frustrations, not about the second seat. I mean, he's not. He's not in like the bottom five finishers of each race weekend like Yuki had been. So I guess that's a plus.
• 28:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, honestly, I. I think we really touched on most.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: We haven't really. Although Martin's not here.
• 28:16
  Speaker B: Right. I was.
• 28:17
  Speaker A: And we almost entirely missed Ferrari.
• 28:22
  Speaker B: Oh, my God. Ferrari.
• 28:25
  Speaker A: And Mark. We are so sorry. Yeah. We're just used to Martin being here to kind of, you know, pushing the conversation towards the red team. Obviously you can't say, you know, it cost anything bad about the Ferraris this week. I think that they were pretty decent. Charles obviously on the podium, he was the quicker of the two. Don't quite know what was. What Lewis's deal was, why he kind of fell backwards in the race. Obviously he benefited from the safety car, but then he just kind of. I don't know, he just. It's like he didn't have the grip level.
• 29:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was really odd because, I mean, he. He can't. After the safety car, he was in third place. He had newer tires than Charles, but he still couldn't keep the pace and dropped to fifth or sixth.
• 29:18
  Speaker A: I think he was sixth at the end.
• 29:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was weird.
• 29:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, because it was. Kimmy Antonelli won the race, followed by Oscar. Great result. Charles third, Fourth was George. Fifth was Lando. We didn't really talk about Lando other than, you know, he just wasn't on the pace. And then six being Lewis, he finished just ahead of Pierre Gasly. I mean, I don't know what the timing distance was, but I think there
• 29:53
  Speaker B: was probably a pretty big gap between those two.
• 29:58
  Speaker A: But it was kind of weird. It was odd. Why? Lewis just wasn't quite there. We'll see how he does after the break. I think one thing's for certain, like we were talking about when changes can come just for. I dropped to try and buy some World cup tickets. One thing that will change quite significantly is basically every car between now and Miami. You know, there's a lot of time. There's a lot of time to fix the, you know, look at problems, address problems, really, without having to focus on logistics of moving people around, all the efforts, all the energies. And I know there are two, like, there are different teams of people doing different things, but. But it's going to be all hands to the pumps to Focus on really getting the car ready. It's really unusual to have this long of a break where everyone's in the office. This break is actually longer than the summer break and during the summer break everyone has to leave for two weeks. So this is everybody in the factory working really hard, putting those hours in to get the cars ready for the next race, which is, you know, four and a half weeks away in. In Miami.
• 31:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean Miami has thrown up some pretty good. Pretty good races since it's been on the calendar. It was obviously a huge question mark. I can't even remember how far back is this the third year?
• 31:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, this is the third.
• 31:30
  Speaker B: And is it a sprint race again?
• 31:33
  Speaker A: It is a sprint race, I believe. Yeah, I think it is a sprint race which will. Obviously everyone's bringing all new bits that they've got to try and get figured out and not a whole lot of time to get it figured out. So that could mix the order up a bit. I'd be interested because it's. You got. If you think about the lap, the start of the lap, there's the first corner, it's kind of flowing and tight. I don't know how long. Obviously around those first corners there's going to be harvesting going on ad nauseam throughout the race and probably in qualifying as well. And then you get a couple of really tight sections before then the long blast down the straight. I'm curious how far down the straight they're gonna get before they start running out of juice or the super clipping thing kind of comes in and how much speed they lose from vmax to when they eventually hit the brakes. Yeah, because that's. That's a pretty long run down there. Granted there's a lot. There's a lot of regen. They're gonna. They're all gonna be at 100% battery at the start of that straight, just by virtue of how twisty that section is. That's immediately before it. So it could, I don't know, dare I say, could be pretty boring because everyone's gonna have the same amount of charge. Right. And the overtake is going to be into that last corner and then they're going to go down the start finish line and into the sweeping corners and get overtaken again. Yeah, that's the pessimist in me.
• 33:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I hope that's not the case. They have that like. It's not really a straight after. I don't know, after like turn three or four, there's like kind of a mini straight there. So maybe that'll throw some stuff up.
• 33:23
  Speaker A: But yeah, into the. Into the. Into the left turn, breaking into the weird Marina bit, right?
• 33:30
  Speaker B: Yes, exactly. But I mean, hopefully. Hopefully we get another exciting one. We shall see. Obviously, like you said, we've got a long ways to go until the. The next race. But before we finish, we have to get into Coops F1. And hopefully we won't butcher this segment because Martin's not. But let's see. I mean, obviously we had some high scores, which is nice. The top score, 290 for Bunny Warren.
• 34:04
  Speaker A: That's a solid score.
• 34:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, not so bad. And then I did not knew. Do even close to that, but the guy in second, Tio Juan Sholin, got 275. And then Boosh with a bunch of numbers after it got 270. So a bunch of really high scores. I only got 175. I feel like a chump.
• 34:29
  Speaker A: Oh, man. I didn't. I've not actually looked. I don't know how I ended up, but I probably didn't score that many points. I probably said, well, it looks like
• 34:35
  Speaker B: I got ahead of you.
• 34:38
  Speaker A: But I still went.
• 34:41
  Speaker B: And Martin's kicking our butts.
• 34:45
  Speaker A: Can't have that. We can't have that. We need to try harder next time.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: I guess so. I mean, we're not used to having him ahead of us on the. On the table. But he deserves it. He deserves it. So where does that leave the top three in the overall standings? Fight to win. Stays in first, but is only one point ahead of Toto's under Vasha, which is. Is that underwear in German? I don't know. So they're at 268. And then Bunny Warren, who got the top score this week, moved up into third with 40. Jump.
• 35:28
  Speaker A: Good for you. Well done.
• 35:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks for listening to the undercuts review of the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix. Please rate your review and subscribe wherever you listen and join us next time for our review of the 2026 Miami Grand Prix. We'll see you.