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The Undercut's 100th Episode and Max Dominates like it's 2023 Again - 2025 Italian Grand Prix Review · The Undercut

• 0:04
  Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Undercut's review of the 2025 Italian Grand Prix at Monza and the 100th episode of the Undercut. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy the show.
• 0:21
  Speaker B: By being a racing driver, you are at the risk all the time. By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people and if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver.
• 0:34
  Speaker A: All right, guys, well this is episode number 100 of the Undercut. Who would have thumb? Wow, we would have gotten to this point.
• 0:44
  Speaker C: So this makes it season four. Time flies.
• 0:49
  Speaker A: Yes. How many years did Max dominate? Was it two or three? Well, I guess it was three, right?
• 0:58
  Speaker B: I mean, yeah, it was, there was a tie with, it was a tie with Hamilton. We weren't doing it that year. Then the following year he just won. He won and he won. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for four in a row.
• 1:10
  Speaker A: This is, this is season four, which.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: Is pretty crazy and, but only potentially the first time we'll see a new world champion to talk about and it not be Max Verstappen.
• 1:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's looking that way, but like.
• 1:25
  Speaker C: I said in the chat beforehand.
• 1:30
  Speaker B: Who.
• 1:31
  Speaker A: Got a little reverb.
• 1:32
  Speaker B: Hello. You came back at us there, Nick.
• 1:37
  Speaker A: What was I saying? So before we go on to the race weekend, we should just briefly talk on the two drivers that were officially confirmed for Cadillac, which we speculated a while ago that this was happening, but Botas and Cho will be back on the grid for next year, which is pretty cool.
• 2:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think Cho, he's got a bit of unfinished business because I think the way that the Red Bull car has been this year has like reflected quite kindly on Checo.
• 2:12
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 2:14
  Speaker C: And I think that it was, yeah, a relatively easy decision for the Cadillac folks to say, yeah, Checo, because he's a big name, big following in Mexico especially and with the Mexican population in the us so it made total sense. Bottas again, very good driver. So yeah, and he's got, he's got the character, the Bottas Aussie man, man.
• 2:44
  Speaker B: Shtick.
• 2:47
  Speaker C: Is, is kind of fun, which I think as a new team coming in you've got to, you've got to try and be a little bit fun. You can't just come in and be, you know, all serious. You've got to, you've got to differentiate yourselves a little bit and you know, there's enough serious, serious types in F1 that you've got to be a little cooler than that.
• 3:05
  Speaker B: I mean it's too. It's an easy decision to make that you. I don't know how much money they have to pay for these guys, you know, versus getting, you know, maybe rookie drivers or cheaper unproven drivers. But it's definitely the right way forward. Right. We saw Haas line up what Mick Schumacher with, you know, Maza spin or whatever a few years ago. That experiment trying to build a team with unproven drivers and hoping, just hoping it's going to work out was an absolute disaster. So, you know, pay for the guys that have the formula on experience that can help your team grow, make the car better. Yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker C: You need people who know how an F1 car needs to work. And yes, the rule set is changing. It's going to make it ever so slightly different. But you need guys that understand how to set up a car because you need that, especially if you're kind of punching up, you know.
• 4:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Just like in the F1 movie, the F1 documentary by Bad Pit, you know.
• 4:08
  Speaker C: Yeah. Make the car faster in the corners.
• 4:10
  Speaker B: Yes, that's right. The older older the driver, the better the car gets.
• 4:16
  Speaker C: Exactly, exactly.
• 4:20
  Speaker A: And they also got Colton Herta as their reserve driver. So maybe we will sometime see him in that seat further down the road, who knows? But a cool idea that will probably get tossed around at some point if something doesn't go well for them next year.
• 4:35
  Speaker C: But was I hearing that he was doing some F2 to try and get super license points or is that just. I. I didn't maybe reading things that aren't really things.
• 4:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it could be. It could be. I know that IndyCar is not rated as highly as F2 is, which seems strange, but.
• 4:59
  Speaker C: Yeah, we could have a whole episode on that, I'm sure.
• 5:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure.
• 5:03
  Speaker C: Essentially it's like it's an FA FIA sanctioned series and never. They're always going to promote the FIA sanctions beta series, you know, so I get it, but it's still stupid.
• 5:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I think that's probably enough on Cadillac, a team we won't see until next year. So let's get on to this very exciting race weekend in Italy. I mean, it seems that McLaren was kind of lowering expectations because they're good in corners that are, you know, high speed corners and there are almost none at this track, so.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: So.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: And it proved to be that way because Max was able to. I mean, when's the last time he's been on. On pole? It's been a while.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's just yeah, that is. That's Monza. Right. It's the. What do they call it, the temple of speed or whatever? Just a few chicanes and a couple of additional corners, and you've completed a. Completed a lap, mostly at full speed. You're looking at the backs of the cars. They run almost no wing, so it's all down to the engine power, and that's borne out in the. In the lap times because it's hard. It's hard to get excited about, you know, gaps, because there almost are none. I think they said the top 10 drivers were covered by, what, half a second or something like that or less. Which goes to show, I guess, how evenly matched these. These cars are when you just look at the engine power, when you take all the air off. But, yeah, you know, Max. Max put it on pole, and, you know, good for him. Did he get a good. Did he get a specific toe for that? Because that's all. That was another part of this track, right? Getting a toe. Yeah. Different. Yeah.
• 6:49
  Speaker C: Well, that was the thing with. With ocon and bam.
• 6:51
  Speaker B: And.
• 6:52
  Speaker C: Which I thought. Thought was quite funny. When ocon came on the radio, it's like, wait, we're out front. I thought this was the thing that we didn't want to happen. Yeah, because you. Yeah, you need people to punch a hole in the air in front of you, but not to be so close that they disturb you through the corners.
• 7:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 7:10
  Speaker C: I think they arrived at four seconds being the optimal. Because that's how far, generally the cars were away from each other. But, yeah, it's. It's a very. It's an outlier circuit very much because it is a. It's a track where Ferrari have historically had a slightly better chance of winning because they always have a Monza spec car. Red Bull historically didn't have a Monza spec car. And that carries through from. When you look at the last couple of years of who's won it, and it's not been Red Bull for a while, but I think they probably got to a point where they saw the state of the car this season and thought, you know what, Maybe we should invest in a Monza spec wing, and maybe we've got a chance of a race in the second part of the season because it came good. I think that on Friday and into FP3, Max wasn't really there. From what I've read and what I've heard that he said, all right, we need to do this. And they found a sweet spot in the setup, which really triggered their front tires. Which meant that he was in really good shape, and that was the difference. I set him up for the whole weekend.
• 8:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. Which was the. Was it at Monza a few years ago where they had that, like. It was a disaster in qualifying where nobody wanted to lead out. And so all the cars were like, bunched up, like, going into the final lap. And then it could have been half the lap, half the field didn't cross the line before the time ran out because they were all trying to, like. It was like a cycling race where you didn't want to be in front.
• 8:51
  Speaker C: You don't want to be the guy to go first.
• 8:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. It was either Monza or Austria, one of those two. That's like a short track.
• 8:57
  Speaker C: It was a short lap because people were thinking they had. They didn't have to leave so early.
• 9:03
  Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Yeah. But that. I mean, again, it just. You don't often get that, but yeah, the slipstream is. Is a big deal. And. Yeah. And if you can pick it up not only on the. On the straight, when you're barreling down at what, well over 200 miles an hour, 300 kilometers an hour, but along some of the other parts of the circuit where you got. You're in full throttle for a while, if you could just pick up a little bit of slipstream from a car in front, you know, if you multiple. You know, get slipstream from multiple cars as you make your way around the circuit, even. Even better. But it was still tight, though, right? It was still just fractions of a second. I mean, as always, I suppose.
• 9:37
  Speaker C: Yeah. From a qualifying perspective, because you have very few bake, very few braking events.
• 9:42
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:43
  Speaker C: And. And that's where you generally get a lot of differentiation.
• 9:48
  Speaker B: The.
• 9:48
  Speaker C: The funny thing was, like, as you were looking through, like, FP3 and into qualifying, a lot of guys outbreaking themselves into. Into turn one in particular. I think that was in Q1. People were going on, going through. Going through the gravel, just trying to find the right spot to hit the brakes. But then once they'd all found that spot, there's very little to.
• 10:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I believe they. I believe they changed the circuit as well. They. They modified turn one a little bit, and I think they've significantly reduced the curbing around some of those chicanes. So you could be a bit more aggressive. They used to be quite aggressive.
• 10:26
  Speaker C: Like the big kind of sausage curb.
• 10:30
  Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Hurt the underside of the car. They flattened all the out. So you could be more aggressive across the curbs.
• 10:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, they put gravel in. It's Funny, I didn't actually notice that at the time, but now that you mention it. Yes, definitely, because with Max Verstappen at the start, and maybe we'll get into the start at this point. He cut the corner, the second half of the chicane, and it was just gravel there rather than the big old sausage curbs, which really set the car in the air.
• 10:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they. They didn't. They didn't. They got rid of that. Yeah, yeah. So that. I mean, that's going to make the track faster too. Right. The lap times quicker, you know. Yeah. You could be more aggressive.
• 11:09
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 11:10
  Speaker B: But.
• 11:11
  Speaker A: And Max doesn't risk damaging his car when he cuts the chicane and keeps P1 going, going out of turn two. Right. And it looked for a time like he was considering not giving that place back, but ultimately he did. And it didn't really matter for him because he was able to get back by Lando fairly, fairly easily and then ultimately storm away like he did for all those seasons of the undercut where we watched him pull away at the front.
• 11:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:47
  Speaker C: I mean, it was a pretty robust defense of first position off the line. I think maybe Max got a bit of wheel spin, but Lando was right up next to him straight away, and he moved over. Normally you see him move over in front of someone, but he moved over and put Lando in the grass.
• 12:07
  Speaker A: Right.
• 12:08
  Speaker C: And then. Then I think Lando maybe did a little bit of a Max routine where he came off the break just a little bit in. In the middle of the first part of the chicane, you know, and. And that's all it took for. For Max to have to go over the. Over the newly laid gravel and go off the track to retain the place. And ultimately that's why a. Probably a little bit more. I don't say conservative approach at Red Bull, but you know that if Christian Horner was in the seat, they probably wouldn't have given the place back. They'd have just moaned about it, just built up enough lead so that at the pit stop he could get the five seconds and there you go. But I think that to your point, Jason, it was only a couple of laps before he got back.
• 12:58
  Speaker B: I think it was like lap six. Yeah. Where he retook the lead. But I mean, maybe they had. Did they have faith that they could retake the lead? Because after that there wasn't too much overtaking to be done at the front of the pack. Right. They sort of just slowly concertinate out. So I guess. Impressive that, you know, Max was able to get that, get that done. Maybe that's when their tires are fresh, the cars are a little heavier. You know, it could make a difference because as the cars got lighter and lighter, the tires got older and older. Nobody at the front was really making too many moves on each other, were they?
• 13:31
  Speaker C: Yeah, no. But I think that with Max's qualifying lap, which is like a second faster or like a tenth of a sec, probably a tenth of a second faster than the fastest ever lap up until now, I guess they realized that their car was just going to be quicker than the McLaren's, right. So they felt that they could do it because like you said, Jason, that McLaren is really, really good on high speed corners. Keeping their tires in the right window and that kind of, on that kind of track in particular, not losing the tyres and falling back. So, yes, Red Bull kind of had a good feeling at that point that, you know, this is actually like, this could be their race to win.
• 14:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, leclerc was in there for a minute, right. He, he had a, he had a shot at like making a, making a move, but in the end he just.
• 14:28
  Speaker C: He got past, he got past Piastri.
• 14:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:33
  Speaker C: And I don't remember, I don't recall. Oh, you know what? It was Oscar Piastri's pass back on leclerc around Curva Grande. No, actually it was in the lesmos, right?
• 14:42
  Speaker A: Was it the lesmos around the outside? Yeah.
• 14:45
  Speaker C: That was nuts. I was watching that going. That is ballsy.
• 14:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, I've never seen that before.
• 14:52
  Speaker C: I've never seen that before. It was awesome.
• 14:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was great.
• 14:56
  Speaker C: The opening few laps of, the only couple of laps were really, really great racing. If they could stay together like that, it'd be awesome. But they can't. And without burning up their tires and, and all of that for all the reasons that we know. But that, those, the opening sequence, you know, the opening couple of laps that overtake the battle at the front as well. It, it, it was a great race for maybe five laps.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker A: I mean, it was really the, the only one that made any moves really after that was Lewis making a couple moves up from. I think he started in P10.
• 15:35
  Speaker B: He was down there.
• 15:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, because he was able to get up into P7. So he was really the only one after the two, the, the guys at the front battling back and forth. He was the only one really moving forward.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, I guess he had a bit more of a miss. He was misplaced on the grid a little bit. Right. Because he had A five place grid penalty that he was carrying from. From. From last week, so.
• 15:55
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 15:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. He should have been faster than those guys in front.
• 15:59
  Speaker C: Yeah. And he had a pep in his step. It seemed like he was in a good place, like, as a, As a guy and yeah, it was good to see because he, he moved through the field and he pitted and he moved through the field again and. And ended up in a. I, I think I estimated on Coops F1 that I. He was going to finish sixth, and.
• 16:16
  Speaker B: I think he finished sixth, dude. That's right. Spot on.
• 16:19
  Speaker A: He's a little bipolar from race weekend to race weekend, isn't he? Like.
• 16:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, he did. It could be much, much worse than his performance in, in Holland, right. With the. The mistake that he made that basically took him. Took himself out the race. So. Yeah, yeah, he's going to be happy with that.
• 16:42
  Speaker A: Then I guess really the next big moment was when Fernando's suspension exploded, which ruined his, you know, good qualifying and a good spot in the race. It was weird. He just went over a big curb and it just disintegrated, essentially. And that was. It just looked like the back of his car just kind of like broken in.
• 17:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, he came out of Ascari, which is like this, the chicane before the Parabolica, the last corner, and he went over the rumble strip and you just saw his front wheel just bubble. And that was it. It was broken. I don't. I don't think that they've said anything about what it was or. I mean, you're hitting the curbs pretty, pretty hard at Monza, right, Because you go, it's the fastest circuit on the calendar and there's like, chicanes that you're breaking in for and you're attacking. But they haven't said whether there was a specific failure or whatever. But maybe it was just, you know, we're so unused to seeing reliability problems on, on the cars that it's kind of unusual when we do get one.
• 17:45
  Speaker B: He had a lot of bad luck, didn't he, Alonso? Like, historically, like last year. But I think recently he's actually been running pretty well. Like, he's had. I think he's had a series of points finishes the last few races, so.
• 17:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, and he was doing really well. I don't know exactly where he was in the field, but he was definitely well into the top 10 when it happened. Well, he'd been running well into the top 10 during the race.
• 18:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, like, I think Ultimately, Stroll ended up dead, last of the. Of the runners. So not a great weekend for Aston Martin at all.
• 18:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think one of. I did see that Stroll's pit stop was slow because the red. The green light on the gantry stayed red. It didn't go green, and that delayed him going out. And when the field is kind of relatively closely packed, that puts you a few spots back. It's quite difficult to pass on this track. So maybe that was part of it, but maybe I'm just giving him credit where credit isn't due and we don't like to do that when Lance is concerned.
• 18:51
  Speaker A: Well, he doesn't make it easy and I guess, really. And then Max flew away and there was huge gaps between everyone, like we were saying. So the McLarens decided to go for a different strategy and hopefully for a safety car and put it on a soft tire at the end of the race. And it looked like maybe there was going to be a moment when Ollie and Carlos crashed into each other. And I, you know, I was praying at that moment, but they were able to both keep it going. And there was just a brief yellow. Yellow flag and no safety car. And.
• 19:25
  Speaker B: Right.
• 19:25
  Speaker A: So that didn't work out for them.
• 19:28
  Speaker C: Yeah. And. And it's bam. And got a penalty. And I get why. But Sainz turned across him. Yeah.
• 19:37
  Speaker B: Right.
• 19:38
  Speaker C: So it's like. It's a. To me, it's like, that shouldn't have been a penalty. It feels like they always want to give a penalty for any kind of contact. And it's like, guys, come on. They have these guidelines and all of that, which, yes, Carlos got his front axle ahead of Ollie, which means that he's got a right to challenge through the corner. But then he cut in to go towards the apex before he'd got asked Ollie's car. So how can they give Behrman a penalty for that?
• 20:13
  Speaker B: Behrman was the one being overtaken. Right. He was the one who was initially in front. And then, yeah, Sainz didn't clear him before pulling across. Like, Behrman was just existing.
• 20:22
  Speaker C: It's like, yeah, the guidelines say you've got to have your front axle ahead of the front axle because you're going around the outside, which is fine. But then when you think about it, it's into a chicane.
• 20:35
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:35
  Speaker C: So it's not just a case of swooping around the outside and keeping it on the track. You've got to make the next corner. And so he went for the apex on the turn in. Bearman was still there. I don't get how that's a Bearman penalty.
• 20:49
  Speaker A: It's kind of like a makeup call from the last race. Right. When Carlos got that penalty kind of suspect.
• 20:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. Science. Yeah. When he. When science is like, I'm gonna go talk to the stewards myself at the end of the race.
• 21:03
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah.
• 21:05
  Speaker B: Which.
• 21:05
  Speaker C: Which I get because, I mean, I know we talked. Well, we didn't, because I wasn't on the last one. You know, Lawson did slide a little bit. He did lose the car a little bit, and that's what resulted in the contact with Carlos last time. So maybe. Yeah, maybe the stewards who were trying to make up for something that they didn't need to make up for.
• 21:24
  Speaker B: Oh, God.
• 21:25
  Speaker C: But Oliver Bearman was. Was in a good spot, and it. And ruined science's race as well. I think science could have been well into the points if that hadn't happened.
• 21:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. I think he finished. Finished 11th in the end.
• 21:39
  Speaker C: He finished 11th. He could have. He could have been potentially seventh, certainly eighth, but, you know, compromised them both.
• 21:49
  Speaker B: I mean, that's a good. A good segue into people trying to manipulate the result and making up for mistakes. It's a good segue into what happened to the McLarens. Right. Where. I mean, that was an interesting. Just.
• 22:01
  Speaker C: I don't.
• 22:02
  Speaker B: Combination of events that people are complaining about.
• 22:04
  Speaker C: They. They came on the radio and said to Lando, who had priority strategy, hey, Lando, we. I know it's not normal, but we. We want to pit Oscar ahead of you, and don't worry, there'll not be an undercut.
• 22:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they said that for sure.
• 22:25
  Speaker C: So they said that. And so instead of bringing Lando in first, they brought Oscar in first. Oscar got the clean stop, and then Lando got the second stop, which had the problem with the front left gone. So, not saying that that would have happened to Oscar if Lando had come in first, but the point is, it was. Yeah, they'd asked to deviate, and so they had to fix it.
• 22:57
  Speaker B: It's a different.
• 22:59
  Speaker C: No, but I. It's. It's different if. Look, if they. If they'd have called Lando in as normal and they messed up his pit stop, and then Oscar on the next lap had come in, then it would be okay. Then it would have been totally fine. They should not have touched it.
• 23:16
  Speaker B: Right.
• 23:16
  Speaker C: But the fact that they'd gone against the normal strategy, basically gone against the norm, meant that the team had intervened in a way that then disadvantaged Lando, which is different from Hungary, where it was racing and they went for strategy.
• 23:34
  Speaker B: Right.
• 23:35
  Speaker C: I think the front left guy, the front left gun, is actually someone from Oscar's crew as well, because they don't have separate pit crews. They have their own guys in the garage, but everyone's on one station. So the same guy who runs the left front gun for Oscar is the same guy who runs it for lap.
• 23:53
  Speaker A: So he did it.
• 23:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. The good piss. Well, the left front gun, right, he tightened the nut and then he pulled the. They. He pulled the gun off and it was flashing red and green, red and green, which I guess means not done. And I don't think he noticed. And the tire guys smacked him on the back of the head. What are you doing? He's like, oh, crap. Oh, shit.
• 24:17
  Speaker A: You could see the wheel was like wobbling a bit too. It was like, come on.
• 24:20
  Speaker B: Right. But I mean, yeah, they do it so many times you kind of get like muscle memory that you just assume that it's, you know, green and done and you forget to do your checks. Maybe. I mean, I don't mind them switching it back. I thought Piastri would give more pushback than he did.
• 24:37
  Speaker C: If it was for the win, he would have 100% given the pushback. Just like we saw in Hungary last year when it took Lando 10 laps to finally go, all right, then. But again, that was a similar situation where the team had called the strategy to protect the other driver and so called them out of sequence and then had to put them back. So it's exactly the same situation.
• 25:00
  Speaker B: I mean, we'll see. It's. It. It's a. Only what, a three point differential on a. On a 30 point swing? On a 36 point swing. Right. On a. But on a 30 point lead that he got, like he's got a 30 point lead in the championship or something. So.
• 25:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, not on if, if it. If Lando hadn't retired in Zandvoort, right. And it was. Instead of being, what was it, nine points going in. So it would have been like 14 points or something, right. If it was a six point swing on a 14 point lead, right?
• 25:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. But that's. Right, that's my point I'm trying to make is that you can, in this particular situation, you're saying all the right things and all the reasons why they could have possibly done it, but now you're on this, like, slope of like, what other things are we going to consider, like out of the driver's hands and, like, unlucky and that we should make it up to them and we should let people through. It's a it. I don't want to be that guy because I hate those arguments politically. Like, oh, like, what if this, then that. But yeah, we'll see. I mean, team orders have always been a thing in Formula one. They tried to ban them. Even when they were banned, they still were there. So, you know, maltese. Yeah, yeah. Multi21se and all this sort of stuff. So they'll never go away. But they are racing for the championship, though, and somehow they seem to still be best of mates. Unless they've got just really good PR people and they're really good at acting. I don't think they have.
• 26:33
  Speaker C: I just think that it's the way that the team is run and they've, they've just got a, an understanding that they talk things through and this is clear. Like after the race when they were, I mean, maybe they were just well programmed afterwards. Yeah, but they were like, all right, yeah, I kind of get it. That's just how it is. So. Yeah, but also it's, you know, they both recognize that they're in a unique position and it may never happen again.
• 27:04
  Speaker A: Well, Max didn't like it.
• 27:06
  Speaker B: He thought, yeah, well, that goes to Max's temperament, right. He's like, what, he switched it back just because he had a bad pit stop? What is that?
• 27:16
  Speaker C: We don't do that in teams where we only have one driver always makes way. So how is this even a topic for debate?
• 27:23
  Speaker B: Max's software doesn't like, doesn't compute, that kind of logic. It just throws that out the window. His robot brain can't compute giving that up.
• 27:34
  Speaker A: Well, if it does come down to three points or whatever at the end of the season, who knows what Austria is going to be saying, right?
• 27:43
  Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. There's still plenty of races to go. It probably, it probably won't matter, but hey, it could.
• 27:51
  Speaker A: Hey, I mean, how many points was Lewis down in? 20? 21. I know he didn't end up winning the championship, but he brought it all the way back to Tide for the last race and he was down a bunch. Right. Three races into like four races into the end of the season and he brought it back, so you never know.
• 28:09
  Speaker B: Well, Max is still in this championship. If he like can win all the races and this the sprints ahead of Piastri and Lando, he's got a chance to close the gap of a Red Bull run.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: But yeah, let's hope not.
• 28:26
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, next up's Baku, which again doesn't have high speed corners. It's tight, it's twisty, it's got a long straight. Who's to say that's a McLaren circuit once you start getting through the rest? And Singapore is similar, but other than that they're all pretty conventional tracks.
• 28:45
  Speaker B: Baku is kind of a street circuit, right?
• 28:48
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker B: And it has that crazy section that it's almost worse than my Monaco in my mind, where it seems ridiculously tight. There's like a castle on one corner and a wall on the other.
• 28:59
  Speaker A: Like I love playing that in the video game.
• 29:01
  Speaker B: So one cast around and then try.
• 29:04
  Speaker C: Not to crash into a castle.
• 29:06
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 29:07
  Speaker A: When you need the, the rewind button on the game, you know, you got.
• 29:12
  Speaker B: To miss that castle. Do not crash into the castle like 52 times. Yeah, but. Well, we'll see.
• 29:23
  Speaker C: I think that's really it. Yeah. We talked about the Verstappen winning the, the McLarens, the Ferraris. We didn't really talk too much about Ferrari, but I think Charlotte Claire finished about where Charlotte Claire was ever going to finish. George Russell had a very George Russell weekend still.
• 29:43
  Speaker B: He's. He existed. Didn't get a podium just by existing this time, but yeah, just tootled around.
• 29:49
  Speaker C: Came in fifth, came in fifth. There you go. Lewis in sixth. Alex Albon. Yeah, great start. He picked up I don't know how many, how many positions at the start, but that's the second race in a row where he's been out of position at the start and really made up some, you know, done some overtaking to get to get up there.
• 30:12
  Speaker B: And he started on hards. Everybody else started on medium, but Alex started on hard tyres, which was.
• 30:18
  Speaker C: He started. I think he was started 13. No, 14th, because the top 13 runners were all on mediums.
• 30:24
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 30:25
  Speaker C: And he started 14th and then just.
• 30:28
  Speaker B: He made it.
• 30:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, he made his way. Yeah, I mean he did. He sat behind Carlos, actually, you know, did. Because where did Kimmy Antonelli end up after the start? Because he lost a bunch of. Bunch of.
• 30:38
  Speaker A: He lost four places. I think he was in 11. P11 or P12.
• 30:43
  Speaker C: He ended up in.
• 30:44
  Speaker B: He ended up in the points in the end. I think he finished. He did, yeah. Eighth after the penalty. But yeah, he was further up the road and then he dropped back because he had a five second penalty.
• 30:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And then Albon was just, I think perfectly happy on the harder tyres to just get the benefit of Drs from Carlos in front of him so that he could just keep his lap times on the straight and then not burn them up on the corners. And that meant that he could go long and stayed out ahead of folks. So another decent result for Williams.
• 31:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. They scored more points this year, I think, so far than they did from like some massive period.
• 31:25
  Speaker C: Seven years.
• 31:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:29
  Speaker C: It's got 84 points or something like that this. This year and they've scored 83 points in the last seven years.
• 31:35
  Speaker B: I mean, when Russell was driving for them that year, they got zero points, I think. Right.
• 31:39
  Speaker A: Famously, they did get a podium.
• 31:43
  Speaker B: They what, sorry?
• 31:45
  Speaker C: They got one podium. P on P2 for the rain. The race that didn't happen.
• 31:51
  Speaker B: Didn't happen. The one in. In Belgium.
• 31:54
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker B: Was it?
• 31:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, the parade race.
• 32:00
  Speaker C: I think. And I mean, moving back down through the Hajar started in the finish. 10th.
• 32:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. Right. Yeah. He got it up into the points.
• 32:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, someone that looked like they could have a good race and didn't even get to race Nico Hulkenberg not even getting retired the car.
• 32:18
  Speaker B: Hydraulic. Hydraulic problem or something. They just retired it on the. On the parade lap or the formation lap. It's unfortunate.
• 32:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they've been having an incredible last, I don't know, five to 10 races. I feel like it's been a while now that that team has really exceeded expectations.
• 32:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 32:39
  Speaker C: The one thing that did stand out because Saba's pit stop since Jonathan Wheatley got there have been really excellent. But Alonso got past Bortoletto at the. At the stop, he was a little bit further behind, but then he almost crashed into the back of Portoletto going into the pits because Alonso really went in hard.
• 32:57
  Speaker A: That's right. And then like moved to the side.
• 32:59
  Speaker C: Managed to get in. Yeah. And then managed to get in and get out ahead of Bortoletto. So a little slower stop from. From the. The Sauber guys than the. Or whatever they're called now than the. The Aston Martins, that little bit quicker got by, so good job.
• 33:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I can't think of anything else.
• 33:21
  Speaker C: But speaking of getting sneaking by someone, that's a good segue into set one as Jason's rubbing his hands in front of me.
• 33:33
  Speaker B: F1. So big, big scores this week. So Wood M01 got the top score with 320 points, which is the second highest score of the season, only bested by Red edit, who got 350 points in one of the American races. What's the only been one American race so far, right? Miami.
• 33:52
  Speaker C: Miami.
• 33:53
  Speaker A: That's right, yeah.
• 33:54
  Speaker B: So, yeah, 320 points. So that's a great score. I think 420 is the maximum you can get, so that was nice. Followed up by DWC Racing with 290 and Matt D. El Oso and Imad82 with 280 points. So good scores for them. And yeah, at the top of the overall standings, our very own Jason snuck back into first. First kind of cracked the 3,000 point mark. 3,004 points only. Only 11 points ahead of Nick. 2993, still very close. And R. Heatley rounding out the top three. I thought I was doing good because I had a few guys in the. In the top, but I just. Everything else just fell apart for me. Mark moved up to 40, 30, moved up eight spots, I think. Did I drop out? Yeah, I dropped out almost. I was just hovering around 100 and now I dropped down 24 spots to 100.
• 34:58
  Speaker C: It's tight in the midfield, isn't it, Martin?
• 35:00
  Speaker B: It is those lap times, but you could throw it. You could throw a blanket over them. We're all scrapping away for sponsorship for next year.
• 35:10
  Speaker C: That's right.
• 35:12
  Speaker B: There's other races to see. Not you don't. It's not just who wins.
• 35:17
  Speaker A: Gotta hire Gunther.
• 35:19
  Speaker B: Although you guys get. You guys get the trophies. I mean, Nick, you're. You're on the leaderboard there with those two trophies next to your name from your previous results. So looking to go again, but. Yeah. And then what? We've got two weeks then till tobacco.
• 35:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's two. It's two weeks tobacco, then two weeks to Singapore. So it's kind of a normal. Almost like the old days.
• 35:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 35:48
  Speaker A: Do you guys know not to go totally off on. On this race weekend, but I'm. You saw the news with Gunther Steiner. I don't know a lot about MotoGP. Is there a lot of crossover between the two sports?
• 36:01
  Speaker B: Not from a driver perspective, for sure. I don't know about team personality.
• 36:06
  Speaker C: Valentino Rossi got in.
• 36:07
  Speaker A: I was just gonna say, yeah, and.
• 36:09
  Speaker C: And did a decent job. But then, you know, I think Liberty Media just bought MotoGP.
• 36:16
  Speaker A: Oh, is that right?
• 36:17
  Speaker C: That deal went through and so, yeah, maybe that. But, you know, maybe he didn't see a way into running an F1 team. And it's like, well, what. What can he do? Well, I can run racing teams. Oh, I can get into MotoGP. MotoGP is a lot of fun. I don't know if you ever really watch it, but it's. It's great. And it was, you know, it, it was super popular for a long while and it's kind of ebbed a little bit and maybe we'll see what happens with, with Liberty and, and if they can do an F1 with MotoGP as well. Yeah, but it's always a lot of fun and those guys are brave.
• 36:58
  Speaker A: Well, yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. If you want to complain about there's no overtaking in F1, it's just all overtaking in Superbikes. Right. They're just constantly overtaking each other. I think in Spain, famously, bikes are the, like the go to, or it used to be the go to motorsport, like more so than F1. Maybe Alonso's changed that a bit.
• 37:22
  Speaker C: Yeah. Before Fernando, it was, you know, even going back to like C. To poms and all of those guys back in the, like the 90s and 2000s and then you know, even, you know, Mark Marquez was, has been. Well, there was a spell in like the 2010s and Mark Marquez was unbeatable and it was hugely, hugely popular. And I think it's, it's still very popular. I think Spain's probably the biggest market for MotoGP at the moment.
• 37:50
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 37:51
  Speaker C: We'll see what, what they can do in the English speaking world.
• 37:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 37:56
  Speaker A: Well, if anyone can bring, if anyone can bring some fans in, I'm sure Gunther is one of those people that has a fan base that will follow him to watch to see what he can do.
• 38:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker C: Actually there was a MotoGP sort of equivalent of Drive to Survive that did one season, but it was produced by a Spanish company. And so all of the interviews were held by non native English speakers, like with heavy Spanish accents. So whenever the drivers were responding to questions, they were always talking with a really kind of funny accent because the person asking them the questions was foreign. So it kind of. Yeah, it's like the famous Steve McLaren speaking to the Dutch media.
• 38:41
  Speaker B: Wow, that's a. That's a niche. You've just lost 98% of anybody listening to this.
• 38:48
  Speaker C: Everyone.
• 38:49
  Speaker A: I have no idea what you're talking about.
• 38:52
  Speaker C: But market does.
• 38:54
  Speaker B: Look. Yeah, look it up on YouTube. Steve. Steve McLaren, like Dutch interview. A very, very English guy, went to manage in Holland for a while and then he gave this interview in English, but for some reason he was.
• 39:08
  Speaker C: Speaking.
• 39:08
  Speaker B: With a strong Dutch accent.
• 39:10
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 39:13
  Speaker B: Oh, dear.
• 39:14
  Speaker C: Nick, he has to give up the corner.
• 39:17
  Speaker B: I had the nose ahead. What is wrong with these people?
• 39:21
  Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Undercuts review of the 2025 Italian Grand Prix Monza. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time for our review of the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix at Baku. We'll see you there.