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Mercedes Prove to be the Team to Beat After One Race - 2026 Australian Grand Prix Review · The Undercut

• 0:08
  Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2026 Australian Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen and enjoy the show. By being a racing driver, you are at risk all the time.
• 0:25
  Speaker B: By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for
• 0:30
  Speaker A: a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver. Well, one race down, guys, in the new regulations, and I mean, at least for the first, what was it, 1012 laps? It was rather exciting. I mean, we saw quite a few overtakes. I mean, we saw, what, like five in the first two laps or something crazy like that? It was. It was ridiculous.
• 0:55
  Speaker C: Well, the league changed hands a few times and there were passes.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think I saw a stat that says there was 25 overtakes in the Grand Prix last year. 45, 45 and 120 this year, or something like that.
• 1:12
  Speaker C: Which makes it clearly four times better.
• 1:16
  Speaker B: Yes, I could do maths.
• 1:19
  Speaker C: I struggled with the math for a minute because I rounded up too many times. But that means basketball is better than football.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:26
  Speaker B: And cricket's even better. 500 runs or something. It was. Jason, you're not wrong, though. It was great.
• 1:36
  Speaker C: You say that because you've got your scarlet tinted glasses.
• 1:39
  Speaker B: Well, it was great to see the. But, okay. It was great to see Ferrari, you know, had a rocket ship star, as we potentially predicted, what they were always planning to do with the regulations. But then it was great to see them hang in with George. But it was just. It was weird and it's going to take some getting used to. And I guess we'll see track to track and as we learn about energy deployment is when are the cars fast and when are they slow? Because all of a sudden it's just on a straight. And when you expect the two cars to be going similar speeds out of the corner, suddenly one rocket rockets by the other. It looks like one's dropped its brakes. Or, you know, obviously there's some harvesting going on or boost deployment, but it's.
• 2:26
  Speaker C: It's really, as Charlotte Claire said, it's like the mushroom in Mario Kart.
• 2:30
  Speaker B: It's like the mushroom in Mario Kart, but clearly. But you would think that the person defending would do the same thing to defend, but maybe you can't or shouldn't. Or there's a learning curve. Yeah. Like it's not the fastest way.
• 2:43
  Speaker C: They burn their battery and then you just blow straight by them because you have more battery than them because they've used it up. Yeah, it was a Whole lot of people getting by and then getting blown by the next straight because they'd used all their battery up. So. Yeah, that was two overtakes right there.
• 2:59
  Speaker B: That's how it looked.
• 3:00
  Speaker A: Right.
• 3:00
  Speaker B: It looked like Russell overtook Leclerc, and then Leclerc would take him back, and then Russell would overtake Leclerc, and then LeClerc would take him back. But then it looked like.
• 3:09
  Speaker C: Can you make it better?
• 3:11
  Speaker B: Well, yeah. Cause cars are close. There's excitement. There's. You know, somebody's gotta be in the lead, you know? Know.
• 3:16
  Speaker C: But they're just flowing by them on the straights, though. It's not. That's not like. Like, last of the late breaker maneuvers to.
• 3:23
  Speaker B: Well, there was.
• 3:24
  Speaker C: To take someone into the next corner.
• 3:26
  Speaker B: There was. There was some of that. Right, though, because George, like, lucked up his brakes. Yeah. You know. Come on, Jason, what do you think? Clearly, we're on somewhat. Two sides of this. You. You liked it, right? You thought it was exciting.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was exciting. Um, and I think that I. I don't know if you heard. A couple of the drivers said that, like, this is the track that, like, makes it so that you deplete the battery the most. So it's like, the most difficult on these types of cars. So when we go to other tracks, it might not be that the cars deplete their batteries so much when they use them, and they might be able to use them to, like, battle back a little bit more. So it's not so much like you're just blowing by. But I. I think it's too early to say, you know, what's.
• 4:14
  Speaker C: I think that this one. This circuit, there aren't as many heavy braking events. Right. Which is really what charges the battery, which is why, you know, you get. You break into turn one, and then there's a break, you know, okay, break into, like, turn three. But then after you get to six. Well, all the way from six, which isn't really a corner anymore, you don't really break for it all the way down to nine. There's nothing. Which is why. I mean, I thought the worst case Scenari was going to be what I just talked about, which is during the race, you were going to get people overtake and then be a sitting duck on the next straight. But Saturday was way worse than that.
• 4:51
  Speaker A: Right.
• 4:51
  Speaker C: On qualifying laps, they get halfway down the straight, and they'd run out of horsepower, they'd just run out of juice, and they'd slow down 70km an hour before they could get to the corner, full gas.
• 5:03
  Speaker B: But is that. Did they slow down because they're charging the battery or did they slow down because the battery ran out?
• 5:09
  Speaker C: If you look on the telemetry on the, on the graphics, they're foot to the floor.
• 5:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, but, and plus, but plus battery to get the extra speed and then the battery runs out and they just. They're just on internal combustion engine. When it's slowing down, the battery just
• 5:22
  Speaker C: pretty much runs out and they're on ice. And that's why they were.
• 5:25
  Speaker B: I thought they were slowing down. I thought they were slowing down because they were harvesting energy towards the end of the street.
• 5:31
  Speaker C: To harvest, you have to come off the gas.
• 5:33
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 5:34
  Speaker C: That's what lifting and coasting is.
• 5:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker C: They weren't lifting and coasting. That was just straight running out of fuel, running out of juice. So like Baku. I know there's a lot of heavy braking in Baku in the first part of the lap, but when you're depleting and recharging your. Your battery multiple times per lap.
• 5:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:52
  Speaker C: How far are they going to get down the straight before they run out of juice? You know, Abu Dhabi, they've got two straights right after one another.
• 6:00
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, it seems that. I thought it was great. I thought it was a good spectacle. I enjoyed it. I was excited to see it. Cars overtaking each other means there's always a possibility of something happening. You know, drivers being aware of other cars on the circuit having to, you know, put their cars in certain positions to do overtakes. But it's definitely unorthodox and not what we're used to seeing. So maybe we'll get used to it. I don't know.
• 6:29
  Speaker C: But my initial point there was that Australia is one of the worst for being able to recharge your battery so high, hopeful that we won't see too many similar cases where the cars are just running out of steam. Oh, and did you hear on Saturday the FIA or F1 said that they were going to go do away with straight line Mode between corners 6 and 9. And everyone, all the teams revolted because in straight line mode, there's no front end on the car right this. So they were thinking it was too dangerous to have everyone going into turn, you know, around turn eight, I guess it is with straight line mode. So they said, oh, we're going to do away with straight line mode on that stretch. Until they. Until the teams told them that if they kept their full arrow on down that straight, they'd go into turn nine, substantially slower than F3 cars.
• 7:22
  Speaker B: Right.
• 7:23
  Speaker C: And then they went, oh, actually that's probably not a good idea.
• 7:26
  Speaker B: Right.
• 7:27
  Speaker C: We'll have to. We'll put it back then. It also meant that everyone's setups were wrong.
• 7:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Everything they've worked towards. Yeah, you're moving it at the last minute.
• 7:39
  Speaker C: But speaking of setup, though, I know we haven't talked about drivers, but obviously Kivi Antonelli binning it. And they put his car together in like no time at all with zero setup on, and he qualified second. I thought that was. That was pretty impressive. But would they have got his car out if it wasn't for the red flag flag from Max?
• 8:00
  Speaker A: Probably not.
• 8:01
  Speaker C: I don't know. Anyway, I jumped ahead.
• 8:05
  Speaker B: No, I mean, everything is up for grabs. I mean, there's so many other things to discuss between piastri and, you know, everything else. But back to Ferrari, you know, the most important. I mean, I did enjoy the racing at the start, and the start was fantastic. Did you notice how. How I thought how quickly the lights went out like that fifth light, the
• 8:26
  Speaker C: fifth one just went.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: Was like nothing. Which is. I've never seen that. Usually that's held. It's in my mind. I've never seen it that short, but it's. It's possible. But yeah, great starts from Ferraris, as we thought. But then Antonelli got wheel spin. Right. So he lost a bunch of places. And then further back, which was the car.
• 8:46
  Speaker C: Hajar was falling back as well.
• 8:49
  Speaker B: Somebody was like, dead or.
• 8:51
  Speaker A: Hajar had a good start, didn't he? But he got like boxed in. And then Charles.
• 8:56
  Speaker C: Is that how he felt?
• 8:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, he got boxed in because George was defending Hajar and didn't see Charles coming up. So Charles went by both of them.
• 9:04
  Speaker B: There was.
• 9:05
  Speaker C: Yeah, I was here in the. In the. In the cooldown room. George said he was looking for Hajar, but he wasn't there.
• 9:11
  Speaker B: Right.
• 9:11
  Speaker C: And then he. That's what made him miss Charles.
• 9:14
  Speaker B: But there was somebody further back to grid. I have to look it up again. But they had. And then g. Was it one of the Alpines nearly, like ran into the back and just scooted by. By the. By a hair's width, like, oof.
• 9:27
  Speaker C: Watch. Watch in car. Yeah, if you think Colapinto's in car. Because I didn't see that during the race at all.
• 9:33
  Speaker B: No.
• 9:33
  Speaker C: Then when they were in the cool down room and they showed it and you could see everyone just jumped because they're like, oh, man, that could have been. I mean, that would have Been a really bad look given all of the, yeah, you know, all the discussions and you know, about cars different speeds off the start if, I mean you couldn't
• 9:49
  Speaker B: fit a. Oh yeah, yeah. How would he miss?
• 9:55
  Speaker C: No idea how, how Colapinto missed him and then didn't bin it into the
• 9:58
  Speaker B: wall because the, the car in front, he was right behind the car in front. Suddenly that car moved out the way and the, the car, what was it you said? Lawson, Lawson's car was like literally right in front of him. Full, full turn. I mean, yeah, amazing but I mean just shows you the skills of the driver I guess but very lucky. We've seen, we've seen that before though pre, you know, hybrid era. We've seen cars run into the back when they bog down at the start. It's nothing completely new but it is something else.
• 10:30
  Speaker C: At Iman at that time which was what led to the safety car that ultimately ended Senna's life. Right, that, that was, that was caused by a start line incident.
• 10:42
  Speaker B: Oh, was it? Okay, Geez Carl.
• 10:44
  Speaker C: No, J.J. leto and Pedro Lami I think it was anyway. Yeah, but yeah it's, that was amazing. Worst thing you could probably imagine being a driver going off the line and then just feeding it into someone else. But that's Colapinto's. One of Colapinto's highlights, the low point was did you see the Colapinto and go penalty?
• 11:05
  Speaker B: No, what's that?
• 11:07
  Speaker C: So well, so they touched his car inside the 15 second window or whatever it is before the lights go for whatever, whatever the window is. Everyone has to be off the grid before the start and they were touching his car and said he got to stop and go but it said car whatever and it said Cola Pinto and go penalty on the, oh on the tv.
• 11:33
  Speaker A: Nice. Well and I guess we learned that Ferrari didn't fire anybody at their strategy department.
• 11:43
  Speaker B: Oh that, yeah. So yeah, yeah, we go from the highs to the lows.
• 11:48
  Speaker A: So they had two VSC opportunities and whatever the first 15 laps could, they
• 11:53
  Speaker C: couldn't, they couldn't take the second one. The second one wasn't available to them. Based on where it was on the, where they were on the track at the time it was on the length of period of the bsc. I think that they were very, very, they would have struggled to get in and out.
• 12:09
  Speaker B: They did close the, they did close the, some cars did come in, I guess that timed it, that got luckier. But when they came around again they did close the pit lane because of course Bottas's car was like, right there.
• 12:21
  Speaker C: I was surprised they didn't close the pit lane. Like, straight away. He was still in the car and people were pitting around him. That was a.
• 12:28
  Speaker B: But the first one was. It's just terrible. Like, you're fighting for the lead. You know, Mercedes pit, just pit as well. Like, I mean, I guess they're technically. They were technically in front of Russell at the time. Wasn't. He was leclerc and head of Russell. But they just seem totally inflexible. Like, and tires just don't. A tire's an issue anymore. Like, should be able to just one stop and just go the distance.
• 12:56
  Speaker C: There's no DEG because they're coasting into the corners.
• 12:58
  Speaker B: Right. So, you know, clearly, I mean, Mercedes ended up doing a one stopper. Right. They just gave up. Yeah. However many seconds is a. Is a. Is a pit stop under VSC versus regular pit stop.
• 13:11
  Speaker C: But how would they. How would they not have talked about it in the strategy meeting?
• 13:13
  Speaker B: Unbelievable. I mean, Hamilton on the radio saying, you know, we should have at least pitted one of us. Yeah. Split strategies. Just. Just go for it. And two. And then he comes back on and says, don't pit me behind leclerc. He's like, literally the strategist in the car, making sure they don't screw him over by double stacking and losing him even more time.
• 13:33
  Speaker C: But, yeah, no, because I get why. I mean, McLaren were in a similar position last year where they were in front and they didn't know whether to pit, or not. But that was. They were sort of hampered by their. Well, we can't pit one without the other to disadvantage. Oscar over Lando. Right. By double stacking or whatever they would have done. And they got passed. But in this case, it's like, yeah, okay, so I can see why they maybe didn't pick leclerc, even though the right call would have been to pit him and say to Lewis, stay out or do what the Ferraris do.
• 14:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 14:09
  Speaker C: I can see why they didn't do that, but they should have just said to Lewis, do what the Ferraris do.
• 14:16
  Speaker B: Because by do what the Mercedes do.
• 14:19
  Speaker C: Sorry, do what the Mercedes do. Because the fact that the Ferrari was there and battling with them, you know, that Charles was battling with George, was what ultimately stopped George taking off into the distance because George didn't want to use his battery and become a sitting duck for Charles behind.
• 14:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker C: So, yeah, I mean, it was a battle, but it was because George was having to be conservative with his battery and not stretch out as big A lead as the car ultimately was able to do and did once the Ferraris weren't in a battle with them anymore.
• 14:57
  Speaker B: That seems to be a thing. I think we were chatting during the race, right, Jason, that I think the cars are faster when they're just on their own. Right. When you're battling with somebody and you've got this power deployment when, when you're battling, you're deploying it at less optimal positions. So when you're sucked into a spot where you're trying to defend a position, you end up actually going around the track slower. But maybe necessarily so because Hamilton definitely closed up. He joined. That was like a three way battle at one point.
• 15:25
  Speaker C: Yeah. And then Antonelli rolled up behind him, got in there.
• 15:28
  Speaker B: But then, yeah, the pit stops, the VSC sort of destroyed all of that. But if you can get like a two second gap and you're not under pressure, then Mercedes seem mostly untouchable, I think. Right?
• 15:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I think it's going to be a little bit like that. They'll find a way to figure out the deployment. But the way to stay in a fight is to stay in the fight, not let them get away.
• 15:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, for everybody else for sure.
• 15:59
  Speaker C: What about later into the race once everyone sort of fell into the order? You look at the Ollie Bearman and Arvid Lindblad that was, you know, 20 laps or whatever of, of not being able to get by because they just didn't want to blow by and then get overtaken. And then you kind of, you know, maybe that's what the racing's gonna ultimately turn towards being once people have figured out the deployment and everyone's found the right way and the optimal times to deploy it. Cause right now they kind of don't. I did hear an amusing story about Lando having a bit of a moment on Saturday practice or something and having to come out of the gas to get out of a slide or something. And then found that he went into the next stretch of the track with way more battery power than he was expecting and ended up being faster.
• 16:52
  Speaker B: Is that right? Yeah. I mean, maybe there's more to learn. I saw a thing with Verstappen saying, yeah, we don't have that much time to practice in these cars. Like there's only so many hours and minutes we have on the track. It's not like on the. When I'm at home, I can give it a go. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:10
  Speaker C: And next weekend a sprint race. Well, this coming weekend in China is a sprint race, so that's going to be Less practice. I mean, obviously they're going to be racing, so it'll be good practice, I guess, for a race condition.
• 17:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:23
  Speaker C: But I can see the sprint race being somewhat chaotic.
• 17:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, probably. I mean, this was essentially a testing session for Aston Martin, wasn't it? I mean, they retired.
• 17:36
  Speaker C: Yeah. Fernando was in the pits for like 10 laps and then came back out.
• 17:40
  Speaker B: And then Stroll was down for.
• 17:43
  Speaker C: Yeah, and then he came back in. I mean, I guess it was a good weekend for them. I mean, by normal standards it's clearly not, but they got more miles under the belt than. Than I think they even thought they would, given that this time last week they were talking about will the car even do 25 laps before either the engine falls apart or we haven't. Permanent nerve damage to the drivers.
• 18:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that first.
• 18:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't.
• 18:08
  Speaker A: Sorry. That first stretch that Stroll did in the race was the longest consecutive lapse they had done in all of testing to this point.
• 18:16
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 18:17
  Speaker C: So, yeah, yeah, it's not been a good start to the year.
• 18:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, I guess. I mean, yeah, hopefully they can get better, but yeah, Aston Martin were definitely the biggest loser. I'd say that, you know, Cadillac for their first race did great. You know, unfortunately, you know, Battas car retired, but, you know, they were in the mix a little bit.
• 18:39
  Speaker C: They were last. The race pace did not look great, but they made it through. I mean, if you think about what they needed to achieve this weekend, they. They achieved everything that they needed to. They qualified pretty well. They, you know, they were never going to make it to Q3, but at one point there was a potential to, to get through to Q2.
• 19:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker C: And, yeah, they, yeah, they just had a. Had a problem with one of the cars and. But I think that they can, you know, it's a good, good starting point for them.
• 19:12
  Speaker B: So where do, where do you think Max is going to fall in all of this? Because obviously he started, what, 19th or 20th with his Q1 crash, but came all the way back to finish just a few seconds behind Lando ultimately, which is in sixth. Yeah, yeah, very impressive. You would think so. Will he mix it up?
• 19:31
  Speaker C: Well, he. He didn't seem to think so. It's like, yeah, it's blown by all these guys. I'm two seconds a lap faster because. Surprisingly quicker. That was pretty funny.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. But can he mix it up at the front, though? Like Ferraris and the Red Bull.
• 19:43
  Speaker C: And it's a shame that Hajar went. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say it's a shame that Hajar went Out. I mean, we forget in all of this, this is Red Bull's first engine as well. I mean, granted, they inherited a lot of IP from Honda, much to Honda status. We just talked about Aston Martin, but. But, yeah, I'd have liked to have seen Hajar stick around and see what he could have done up against the Ferraris and the Mercedes. Would he have stayed ahead of Lando? Maybe. I mean, I think, you know, fifth could have been achievable. I don't think that he'd have beat. Stayed ahead of the Ferraris. Starting third, the Ferraris got ahead. But is it the third best car?
• 20:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I think so, unfortunately.
• 20:30
  Speaker C: I mean, the third best car. Max is in with a shot.
• 20:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. He can take any. He can make any car better, for sure. And I mean, the McLarens, I mean, Piastri, what a shocker. I mean, he must be just gutted.
• 20:48
  Speaker A: It's cursed.
• 20:51
  Speaker B: He is. I mean, after last year when it started raining and he span onto the grass and lost a minute getting back on the track, and then this. This time he doesn't even make the. I mean, what. What happened? He hit the curb and there was a. A burst of energy.
• 21:07
  Speaker C: Yeah. So a bunch of. So I sent you the video ant Davidson's breakdown. I thought that was really cool to. He kind of got all that together in such a short period of time to kind of talk about. You know, you could. When you were watching it, you could see that he was. Yeah, he was on the radio at that particular point, clearly saying, well, something's going on with the deployment. And on cold tires, when the power came back or whatever was built up, flooded in.
• 21:38
  Speaker B: Right.
• 21:40
  Speaker C: It was. It, you know, cold tires put him off the track, which is, like, really embarrassing. I feel so bad for all the Australian fans who were there to go watch it. And they didn't even see him take the start. He didn't even get on the grid. This was on the outlap to the grid.
• 21:56
  Speaker B: I know.
• 21:56
  Speaker A: Brutal.
• 21:57
  Speaker B: Unbelievable. And, you know, Lando was just a participant, right? He didn't. Did he do anything really? He sort of a solid. A solid race. He thought of. I thought Max just sort of maybe ran out of tires and whatever at that point. He had. He clearly had enough in the tank. Whatever was. Whatever was left for those last few laps to hold off Max. They were going around at similar pace,
• 22:24
  Speaker A: but there's a lot of work to do.
• 22:26
  Speaker B: He wasn't really a factor. Yeah, but, you know, we'll see.
• 22:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we. We Spoke briefly, but an incredible first race for. For Lindblad. What's he, 18 years old?
• 22:40
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 22:42
  Speaker A: And Mark Fourth.
• 22:43
  Speaker C: Youngest driver in F1 history.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: Crazy.
• 22:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:46
  Speaker C: Youngest British driver in history.
• 22:49
  Speaker B: He was. He was showing some good racecraft, I think, like putting the car in positions, defending, you know, making overtakes and stuff. I mean, again, we're not quite sure how much of that is down to the car and the way that their energy is deployed and what's the driver, but, you know, it's got to be stressful being in that situation for the. For the first time. So.
• 23:09
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think he. He'd be disappointed with where he qualified because he was certainly looking in the earlier qualifying parts of qualifying. He. He was looking better than when he. We start ninth, was it, or. Yeah, I mean, further back than that.
• 23:22
  Speaker A: I would think starting in the top 10 would be good for him, don't you think?
• 23:25
  Speaker C: I mean, yeah, he. He was great and he was fast and he looked like he deserved to be there, so. And there was, you know, he was racing Hajar on track at one point.
• 23:36
  Speaker A: Right?
• 23:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:37
  Speaker C: Before Hajar's retirement.
• 23:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was great.
• 23:40
  Speaker C: So that was. That was good to see. I mean, you know, Red Bull, for all of their missteps in the driver market, it looks like these last two guys who've come down in Ajar and Lindblad are pretty decent. Lawson, we still remain to be seen, but, you know, he's really got to up his level this season. Otherwise I can see him not being around in 2027.
• 24:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, there's five British drivers on the circuit and all five scored in the points in the top 10, so great day for British racing.
• 24:17
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 24:18
  Speaker C: Except if you're British. But Thai okay.
• 24:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're not counting. That's true.
• 24:26
  Speaker C: The guy that's under the Thai flag with the most English accent, because you listen to Ollie Fairman, he listen to Lando. They've got this kind of strange European sort of thing to their accent because they grew up karting in Ital and all that sort of stuff. And then you've got the Thai driver who's got the. The most British accent of a lot of them.
• 24:43
  Speaker B: I can't. I can't. I'm just trying to imagine a British off. A Britishness off between Albon and George Russell or something. George can be very British if he.
• 24:55
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker B: If he wanted to. Oh, yeah.
• 25:01
  Speaker C: No, I. And. And that's a good segue into my buddies at Williams. They've had a bit of a.
• 25:05
  Speaker A: Not good.
• 25:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. They, they were, they were anonymous pretty much, weren't they?
• 25:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean Alex came In what, like 12th, which I think was a little flattering and they benefited from the, from some of the retirements, while certainly on the part of Hajar and Piastri. Right. But yeah, I mean to say that they were, you know, quite vocal about how they moved towards 2026 and 2026 was the target and they show up with a car that's like 30 kilos overweight and then other, you know, which is worth a second or two just in, you know, weight penalty per lab and they had a, just not a good spot.
• 25:46
  Speaker B: I think they had a misstep. One of the pit stops. I think Sainz came in and they couldn't get the front jack underneath, which lost Sainz a few seconds and at least a place I think on the track. So.
• 26:00
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but that's all this talk of Mercedes having built like this amazing engine with this compression ratio and all that sort of stuff and it's like, yeah, Mercedes were light years ahead at the front, but McLaren and Alpine and Williams, they've got the engine too. And you know, maybe there's a, you know, they sort of had it set in like E mode when they sent it out of the factory to the customer teams and you know, they know the modes themselves. It's like they just, they sent because everything has to be equal. They have to give them the same engine that they have as spec needs to be the same. They don't need to have page 57 in the manual. Nothing, nothing in the rule about that.
• 26:42
  Speaker A: Right.
• 26:43
  Speaker B: Makes me think about like the Volk, the Volkswagen scandal, right, where it knew it was on a rolling road and went into a different mode for emissions and ran, you know, and ran like an eco car. And then when the minute you took it out on the track, it was on the road, it was more like a diesel truck, you know, spewing out, spewing out pollution. Yeah, this, the engine knows it's in, it's got George Russell driving the car or Kimmy, so it gives it everything.
• 27:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, George certainly has an heir to him this year. Just like he's strutting around the past confidence, doesn't he?
• 27:20
  Speaker B: He does, he's, he absolutely is taking that role on. He doesn't seem to be phasing him right now of, of pre season favorite, you know, and he's backing it up with his first, first results and see how it, how it goes, whether the pressure starts to get to him.
• 27:36
  Speaker C: Well, the pressure will get to him if he has competition.
• 27:40
  Speaker A: Right.
• 27:41
  Speaker C: If he starts building a buffer over the first few races and he's got a lead in the championship and, you know, at this point of the season, he's just got to beat Kimmy because Kimmy's in the same equipment and if their car is the class of the field right now, then he's going to get, you know, I don't think that Kimmy's gonna really pressure him too much. You know, Kimmy's, you know, it's his second year, but he's. He's only a year older than Arvid Lindblad.
• 28:10
  Speaker A: Right.
• 28:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. They're all still teenagers.
• 28:14
  Speaker C: They're young guys.
• 28:15
  Speaker B: They're too young to feel the pressure maybe.
• 28:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. But that's what we said about Oscar.
• 28:19
  Speaker C: I'd like to be proven wrong. Yeah. I'd like to be proven wrong in the same way that Oscar came back. But that was his year three. You know, two to three is really the big year because year one was just getting used to the fact that you're in the circus.
• 28:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. What else. That was pretty much it. Right, what else?
• 28:38
  Speaker C: Audi did well.
• 28:39
  Speaker B: Oh, they did. They did good. Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker C: Obviously it's still just saa, but it's, you know, ninth. Best team last year. Yeah, they've, they've, you know, they're in really, really good shape.
• 28:53
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 28:53
  Speaker C: Haas, I think Ollie Bearman finished best of the rest. He led that midfield group after the. The Ferraris, the McLarens, the Red Bulls, the Mercedes. He finished. He came home in, what, seventh Behind. Behind Verstappen,
• 29:11
  Speaker A: Biden.
• 29:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's a, that's a solid, a solid weekend for them. I don't know about ocon, but he seems to be moaning on the radio.
• 29:19
  Speaker A: Quite finished P11, so, I mean, just outside and he was right behind his old teammate and rival, Pierre.
• 29:27
  Speaker B: Right, Pierre. Yeah, those two, they had quite the.
• 29:32
  Speaker C: Did they?
• 29:32
  Speaker B: Were they. The two that came together at one point, like they sort of bashed Alpine. Yeah. No, but in this race, didn't they touch like the side pods hit the
• 29:41
  Speaker A: wheels or something and they. Then they talked about their crash there in the past when they were teammates and in the points. Right.
• 29:49
  Speaker B: It always seems to be the two of them coming together, but yeah, I
• 29:53
  Speaker C: was expecting more from Alpine. You know, I still rate gasly as a driver, but yeah, I was surprised to see them behind the Haas and the racing balls, especially given the whole thing about Mercedes. Engine is supposed to be really, really good, but yeah, Good on the likes of Ollie Bearman and, and Harvard Lindblad for getting ahead of him on the road, you know.
• 30:18
  Speaker B: Yep, yep.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: I guess, I mean we, we spoke about it a little bit. But onto the first sprint race of the, of the season in China next week. So, you know, we'll see if they, they can figure it all out in one more practice session before they're racing again.
• 30:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. What's the China circuit like for the, for the battery deployment then and the recharging? What do you, what do we predict?
• 30:42
  Speaker C: Well, it's a very long straight.
• 30:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 30:45
  Speaker C: It's a very long straight. But there are. And the long straight comes after a semi straight, a back straight, which maybe. I don't know. I think one of the areas where we may see overtakes that we didn't see before is like the turn five or six hairpin at the bottom end. If people have retained some of their battery and can use it, there's. I don't know. I still think they may run out of juice down the straight as well here.
• 31:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:18
  Speaker C: But happy to be proven wrong on that.
• 31:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, we'll see. I mean.
• 31:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, two, two very long straights. Yeah. With the, all the twisty stuff in between.
• 31:27
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:27
  Speaker B: But one what, Two very heavy braking
• 31:30
  Speaker A: zones in that turn. One like kind of deceleration. They should get a lot of bad 200.
• 31:36
  Speaker C: Yeah. They should be able to pull some back there. And then the braking into that, that hairpin at that one end. And then there's a couple of, you know, there's a left and a right twist and then, you know, into the back straight. I think there's opportunity to charge the battery. I just hope that it, it, it doesn't run out.
• 31:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker C: Otherwise I think they're gonna. The FIA and F1 for some tracks may have to say, well, deployment, you know, you're not gonna be able to deploy like the full 350kW. Maybe they take it down to 250 to try and make the boost last longer by reducing the amount at which. The rate at which the battery can deploy. That'll obviously make the cars slower overall, I guess, but maybe it will mean that you're not going to have that in car view and hear the engine just drop off because that was really not a good look. And they kept showing the in car views going down into turn nine. It's like, why are they doing this? This is the last thing I'd be showing if I was F1 because it's like you're the car like, it's like they're just lifting off and then coasting through Turns 9 and 10, which like last year and every year before, it's just been like, hold on tight, right? Get through this, you know.
• 32:51
  Speaker A: Well, I guess we'll see. It's hard to. Hard to make any predictions at this point. I mean it's. Can't even really tell what cars are going to be better at what tracks yet or if that's even a thing. Like who knows?
• 33:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, we'll have to wait and see.
• 33:09
  Speaker C: That's why we watch it, see what happens.
• 33:12
  Speaker A: Well, anything else we missed?
• 33:15
  Speaker B: Yes. Coop's F1 scores. Come on. Jay Lazzie. Oh, he's not in the top 10. So he's not even interested anymore. He's like
• 33:30
  Speaker C: given where the Ferraris finish, I'm guessing that Martin's ahead of both of us.
• 33:36
  Speaker B: You're guessing that Martin got joint top score on the, on the website, that he's currently in first place along with. Along with Ayrton Sanyo, Kenny Baum and PKF1 2020, all with 240 points. So yes, it's only taken 23 years. I don't think I've ever led. It's a bit like George Russell. I've been in, I've been around for a while but I've never been in the lead before, you know. So, yeah, very, very happy. There was a little snafu with calculating the points. Somebody else, unfortunately, I forget who it was, might have woken up and saw themselves at the top of the table. But there was a bit of a maths error which I had to correct but. So they dropped, they dropped down to their correct. I think it was S Fulhamer which they only got. They're only five points behind but behind me. But yes, I'm. I'm currently first. Nick. Thank you, Nick. You're not too bad. I think you're just outside the top 10. 14th and yeah. Jason 54th but early days, early days. Long way to go.
• 34:46
  Speaker C: Come back, the margins are tight.
• 34:49
  Speaker B: Yeah. All right. But yeah, we'll be back. We'll be back at it in Shanghai in just a few days.
• 34:56
  Speaker A: Yeah. And just remember to put the picks in because when is qualifying? It's like 3 o' clock in the morning. Right. On Saturday or something like that for
• 35:07
  Speaker B: east coast of America. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure the timings
• 35:10
  Speaker C: but yeah, it'll be in the overnight hours.
• 35:15
  Speaker B: So yeah, qualifying is it 3am and then the race is on the 15th at 3am as well. For East Coast US East Coasters.
• 35:25
  Speaker A: I will not be staying.
• 35:26
  Speaker C: I may have to watch that one in the morning.
• 35:27
  Speaker B: Yes, that might be a delayed one.
• 35:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. He has to give up the corner. I had the nose ahead.
• 35:35
  Speaker B: What is wrong with these people?
• 35:37
  Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Undercuts review of the 2026 Australian Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And join us next week where we'll review the 2026 Chinese sprint race Weekend. We'll see you there.