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One Safety Car Call Decided the Entire Spanish Grand Prix - 2026 Spanish Grand Prix Review · The Undercut

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:07
  Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy the show.
• 0:19
  Speaker A: By being a racing driver, you are under 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.
• 0:31
  Speaker C: All right, boys. Well, the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix, the first race in Madrid in quite a long time and you know, we've had quite a. We've had a couple exciting races in a row leading up to this one, but this was not one of them.
• 0:51
  Speaker D: No, this streak came to an end after. Yeah, Kimmy's, you know, from worst to first run in Monza, this was a real snooze fest. I mean the opening few laps were definitely interesting. But yeah, they, this circuit, I mean this circuit is like a hybrid street like temporary thing they put together kind of like I said last week, kind of Miami esque, you know, that they put together. But you would think that they, I don't know, am I, am I oversimplifying it? That people know what makes a good circuit, you know, around, you know, this kind of turns, this kind of braking, this kind of straights, you know, that
• 1:36
  Speaker C: doesn't make for a good circuit.
• 1:38
  Speaker D: We know what doesn't work. I do like, I, I do love a banked corner. I like the one in Zandhor and this is the. Got the longest banked corner in F1, the Madrid Ring. I do like a banked corner. But yeah, was dire. Right. Nobody could, could do anything anywhere. Cars going off, I mean, because it was a street circuit, I guess, no room for errors. Right. So people couldn't take risks because if you did, you're just in the wall.
• 2:06
  Speaker E: Yeah. And I think one of the big challenges around La Monumental was that, yeah, it's a really long banked corner. It's great to drive on a qualifying lap, but it puts so much load through the tires that no one's going flat out through it during the race because it'll just kill your tires. And it's a 20, was it 26, 27 second pit loss. So everyone's preserving their tires, backing off half a second, whatever a second through that section. Because the downside of blasting it through is that you're going to have to put a bit extra pit stop in.
• 2:50
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 2:50
  Speaker E: Which is never going to work.
• 2:51
  Speaker D: You can never make up the time. Yeah. The delta is always going to come out against You. Yeah, yes, a bit of a.
• 2:59
  Speaker E: Should we talk about pit stops?
• 3:03
  Speaker C: I mean, I mean that was the whole race, right? I mean, the pit stop, that.
• 3:07
  Speaker D: Yeah, that was the whole race.
• 3:09
  Speaker E: The whole race. I mean if. Should we start at the start in. From a qualifying perspective, A phenomenal lap by Lando in qualifying to put it on pole. It was a pretty decent qualifying session. Kimmy Antonelli on, on second. And then what? He got Max and Lewis or.
• 3:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think.
• 3:29
  Speaker E: Who was it? I forget, I forget the exhaust. But you had, you had Lewis trying to stick it up the inside of Lando. He backed out, you know, pretty well. Kimmy on the outside decided to just straight line the first chicane and then he straight line the second as well, but we'll come to that. And. But when Lewis backed out, he bumped over the curbs. Max was to his right. Max decided that, you know, he'd seen Lewis bump over the curbs, gave him a little extra room, shall we say. And he went straight on through the chicane as well. Obviously that put Kimmy ahead of Lando and Max ahead of Lewis. And then at that point, right, Kimmy gave the position back to Lando before the next chicane. But then he cut the next chicane again anyway. And then, and then Max, as Kimmy was giving the position back that the next chicane. It seems like it's chicane after chicane after chicane. Max did a great move to take, you know, take Kimmy who was giving the position back to Lando, move up into, into second and then the call comes from Max to give the position back to Lewis who's already, you know, he's two spots back and I don't know, I'd have just stayed out because at that point, you know, two positions on the road is going to be three or four seconds. But when they give him, you know what they give him 10, they'd probably plead it down to five because it's the opening corner. So we'd have a five second pit stop, you know, five second penalty. This pit stop. The way that the race goes, it's like just get out there and try and make, you know, make some time up. Because everyone knew overtaking was going to be tough anyway. So track position is all important. Keep it as long as you can. And if, yeah, I mean, maybe you do fall behind at the pit stop when you serve a penalty. I don't know, it just felt that they were a bit too quick to give the position back because the say the downside is just that you get a penalty.
• 5:48
  Speaker D: It's. It's a bit of an unusual situation though, isn't it, where we see it quite often where, you know, somebody gains an advantage by like shortcutting a corner, goes ahead and then they give the position back. That, that is not an uncommon occurrence, but it is somewhat more uncommon where you gain the advantage. But the, the car that you overTook is now two cars behind you and there's somebody else in between. So if you're going to give it back, you've got to like, give back even more.
• 6:17
  Speaker E: And maybe especially with it being the first corner as well. And Lewis did go bouncing over the curbs. Granted, he did manage to gather it up, but Max wasn't really to know that. I mean, I'm not a Max defender by any stretch. I, you know, I mean, Lewis is my favorite driver, but I don't know, I was, you know, Max was a little cautious, gave a bit more space. And for me, eh, first corner incident,
• 6:45
  Speaker D: I felt like that they just went. The Red Bull just went into like, normal procedure. Like, we believe you gained an advantage. We're going to take the. Take it out the steward's hands and we'll give the place back. But it just so happens in this case that that meant letting two cars through instead of one, which, and I get your argument at all, like, if they thought about it for another second, maybe we'll just take whatever penalty comes our way. But who knows?
• 7:09
  Speaker E: Because it wasn't the stewards at that point. It was the race director. The race director saying, you should give this position back. But the race director then just proceeds to give it to the stewards because he's got to pay attention to the rest of the race. He's just reacting on what he saw as it happened. Whereas they give it to the stewards, the steward have a bit more time to look at it and they look at it and they go, well, he was bouncing over there and did he lose control? Probably not, but Max was reacting to the fact that he bounced over there. So it's kind of a wash. First corner maybe. No harm, no foul, maybe.
• 7:37
  Speaker D: I don't know. They tend to take. I think the teams tend to take it out. They don't like it going to the Stewards anymore. They tend to want to show, you know, that they're actively trying to race fairly. Maybe that will give them some, you know, some.
• 7:50
  Speaker E: Horner wouldn't have done it,
• 7:53
  Speaker D: Flavio wouldn't have done it.
• 7:57
  Speaker C: That may be true, but maybe they'd be more likely to penalize him more just because Kimmy's doing the right thing ahead of time. And then he capitalizes on that to take that spot from him, deciding not to give the spot back, you know.
• 8:10
  Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the thing. You who, if you, if you act as a team, you're at least keeping it in your own hands. You're making a decision, and you. That's something you can do about. If you just leave it up to the stewards, you know, who knows how long it'll take for them to decide. That could mess with your strategy later on, you know, if there is a safety car and stuff. So there. Maybe there is some strategy to getting it out of the way sooner or later and just getting on with the race. So who knows?
• 8:37
  Speaker E: And as it was to. To Jason, to your point, it wasn't that long before. Well, it didn't seem that long before Lance Stroll did a terrible job of driving through a gap in the barriers.
• 8:49
  Speaker C: Right.
• 8:50
  Speaker E: Because what, what actually happened? Because he. He was going into a corner and. Was it his brakes or something? I don't know.
• 8:56
  Speaker D: He.
• 8:56
  Speaker E: He ended up going down the escape road, and then he, you know, he just kind of did what he did in Brazil with the gravel trap with the corner of the barrier and just went to drive through it at an angle he was never going to get it through.
• 9:09
  Speaker C: Well, I think he was going to try and spin it back onto the track first, but he just couldn't do that. And I think he just gave up. He was just like, all right, hasn't
• 9:19
  Speaker E: he messed that up before? Didn't he mess that up in Baku or something one time?
• 9:22
  Speaker C: I think he did.
• 9:22
  Speaker E: He's only messed it up in Brazil when he beached it in the gravel trap.
• 9:26
  Speaker D: Yeah. And. And just a few laps before that, I think Hamilton had gone down there when he started with his brake problems, and he had deftly flicked it around 180 degrees and got back on track just to show. Show. Show Stroll how it's done. Well, he did it before Stroll was down there, but, yeah, pretty poor showing by.
• 9:47
  Speaker E: Yeah. But I, you know, Stroll went to drive it through the barrier, but he. He went in at the wrong angle, which meant that he couldn't drive off the racetrack. So as soon as marshals need to come on to the racetrack, they'll always throw out the virtual safety car. But they took timing. Yeah. I mean, it took a while because they got to figure out they got to get marshals into position because they don't want to neutralize the race longer than they have to. They're only really neutralizing the race when the marshals are there on the track. The fact that Lancer's sitting in his car is still only a double waved yellow. It's only when the track marshals go into the. Into the live area that that's when they need to get the BSC going. So I guess it was sort of. I can see why when you're in the lead, you don't pit until they actually throw out a bsc. Because how often is a BSC on for like a lap and a half, two laps? They got the, they got the car off the track really, really quickly. It just so happens that for Lando, he was. He just got to the last corner, he was six seconds ahead of Kimmy, who had just enough time to react and pit. And then they went round the lap and Lando was entering the pit lane almost just about to turn into the pit lane when the VSE ended. And so that was that. I mean, the question was then, were they right to bring him in or should they have left him out?
• 11:15
  Speaker D: Well, what do you think? Are you talking about? Right, to bring in Lando at the end of the next lap, after the
• 11:22
  Speaker C: next, you're just not there.
• 11:23
  Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, he should have, he should have stayed out maybe. Yeah, just. And got carried on with his pace and maybe, maybe another safety car would have happened.
• 11:33
  Speaker C: But there are no other moments after that. Right, so in the end.
• 11:36
  Speaker E: No, I mean, but at that point, I mean, that's hindsight, right? We don't know.
• 11:39
  Speaker D: You don't know.
• 11:41
  Speaker E: But you look at the F2 and the F3 races, people were binning it all over the place. Obviously these guys are a lot better drivers than the F2 and F3 drivers, but just given how close the walls are, I can see a reason why they would have left him out. Obviously, it was what, lap 15, 16. So that was well into the. That was into the pit window for the medium tyre, which is what Lando was on, versus Charles, who was on the hard tire, which held up really, really well on this track.
• 12:10
  Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, yeah, but that was. I mean, Leclerc effectively did that strategy. Right. He didn't pit, he stayed out on the hard, waited for another safety car that didn' ended up pitting right at the end and finished fourth. You know, Norris was still ahead of. Ahead of leclerc, but effectively they both pit under, you know, green conditions.
• 12:29
  Speaker E: Yeah, they were probably pretty much the only ones that did. Oh, Pierre Gasly went Right to the end, didn't he?
• 12:34
  Speaker D: But Gasly. Yeah, gas. Some of the guys down below, Gasly, Bortoletto, Tsunoda, Bearman, Bottas, they all didn't pit on on lap 14.
• 12:47
  Speaker E: Yeah, they were all the guys that were on the hard tire.
• 12:48
  Speaker D: They're all on hard tire.
• 12:49
  Speaker E: Ye, it wouldn't, it would, it would have made it a two stop race for certain if they'd have stopped and put the medium on. So totally get why they go on and you can kind of see why with the medium tire on they did pit Lando. It just, it just really sucks.
• 13:06
  Speaker D: Well, I would add that in Anton Fair credit to Antonelli and Mercedes. It seems to be clear that Antonelli slowed considerably before the VSC was, was shown. So the yellow flags were waved. Stroll was, was stuck. The yellow flags were being waved. Telemetry shows that Antonelli Lift was the slowest car on the track before the VSC came out to make sure that he didn't or to give him the best chance to pit. Unlike, you know, Lando who carried on, you know, at full tilt and missed the pit entry by, you know, a few seconds. So fair play to.
• 13:51
  Speaker E: Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know that. It's like they kind of came on and said there might be a vsc, don't lose a place, but don't hurry to the pit lane.
• 14:03
  Speaker D: It said Antonelli went through turn 19 30km slower than the previous lap and he lifted much earlier reaching turn 20 and went into the braking zone 25km an hour slower there. So he definitely slowed down before the VSC was even called in anticipation that it probably would be. So that's some quick thinking and to communicate that either he did. I don't think he did that. I'm not sure he did that on his own or in communication with the pit wall, but that was nice.
• 14:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, it seemed pretty obvious they were going to bring it out, right? I mean the car was sticking out of there. I didn't understand why they didn't bring Lando in the first time. I mean the beginning of the stop would have been a little bit at regular race speed or whatever, but everyone else was going to come into pit anyway that was chasing him.
• 14:53
  Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, hindsight, Jason, it sounds very plausible what you just said, but imagine even at the time, even at
• 15:00
  Speaker C: the time I feel like you could see the car was sticking out, like they'd have to bring guys onto the track to move that car, you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker E: but it could, but it could very well just have Been that the VSC was active for an extra 15, 20 seconds as well. At the same time.
• 15:16
  Speaker C: Right.
• 15:16
  Speaker E: You can't try and time these kind of things. I mean, at the end of the day, the VSC is there just purely for safety. They don't want to keep the race neutralized longer than they have to, or they should. They shouldn't be taking into account other factors. It just should purely be. We need to get the marshals on the track now. This is when we initiate it. Everyone's clear, okay, now it's off. And as soon as you start factoring anything else into it, then it becomes the whole litigation thing. It's like you just keep it for what it's for. Some people are going to lose out. Lando's first win in Miami.
• 15:50
  Speaker D: You took the words right out of my mouth.
• 15:52
  Speaker E: Safety car, vse. I forget whether it's VSC or safety car.
• 15:55
  Speaker D: Full safety car. Yeah.
• 15:57
  Speaker E: You win some, you lose some. Hopefully over the period of time it'll even out. But if you change the rules now, people are already down and never going to get up. So.
• 16:07
  Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in any other racetrack as well, maybe Norris could have still won, right?
• 16:15
  Speaker E: Oh, yeah. If he could overtake on this track, the rate that he was coming through, he would have got past at least Verstappen and probably got Kimmy. Obviously, you don't know how much Kimmy was just pacing himself relative to Max's pace. But yeah, I, I, it was definitely a third step of the podium because you can't overtake on this trend.
• 16:35
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, he looked way quicker in the beginning part of the trip of the race. I mean, I know that he had the clean air compared to the people behind him, but still he was pulling away rather quickly.
• 16:45
  Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, the medium tire was a little bit temperamental. I think here and the McLaren, they've, they've figured something out with the tyres and they, they do really well. So that's, you know, he was six seconds ahead. I think he's 6.1 seconds ahead when, when stroll went off.
• 17:04
  Speaker D: Well, I mean, I mean, I mean, you could talk about Hamilton obviously, just maybe unlucky with his, his brake failure. I'm not quite sure if that was just, maybe that's just bad luck, you know. Okay. You know, some, occasionally things break on the cars and then, yeah, you know, they, they gambled with leclerc keeping him out and, you know, another safety car didn't come, so that didn't, he had to just pit under green and ended up, ended up fourth.
• 17:33
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 17:34
  Speaker E: I mean, I think obviously the story coming in. Obviously we've got two Spanish drivers. What could they do in the race? Oh, Carlos Sainz crashed into Alonso.
• 17:45
  Speaker D: Yeah. Sainz ended up getting a penalty for that, didn't he?
• 17:48
  Speaker E: Yeah, but you look at what. Science has had a bit of a torrid run, hasn't he? I mean, you had. Who's he crashed into? Did he crash? Oh, he crashed into Piastri in Hungary.
• 18:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, that was right when.
• 18:03
  Speaker E: When, when Piastri was going to lap him.
• 18:05
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker E: Didn't he crash into Yuki in the. In practice or Quali. He's, he's, he's had.
• 18:13
  Speaker C: He's been a few times. Yeah, it's been a few times.
• 18:15
  Speaker E: Didn't he crash into Alex as well at.
• 18:18
  Speaker C: They did, yes. Last race.
• 18:20
  Speaker E: Yeah, that was in. In Imola, in Monza.
• 18:25
  Speaker D: Right.
• 18:26
  Speaker E: He's just. I don't know, they've given him a nice new contract and now he's forgotten how to drive.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:30
  Speaker D: And then he ended up just retiring the car anyway. I'm not quite sure what the reason was there. They just, they just retired it or something.
• 18:37
  Speaker C: Well, I don't know if you heard him say that he. There they are totally focused on next year. If it wasn't, you know, obvious. He, he said it out loud this weekend, Carlos. So.
• 18:49
  Speaker D: Right.
• 18:50
  Speaker C: He's. He's just tooling around now,
• 18:54
  Speaker E: waiting till next year. I mean, it's, you know, we've said it before, it's just been a massive disappointment for Williams after all of the noises that they were making over the last year OR 2. That 20, 26 was going to be their year. But then they show up with a car that's 10 kg overweight. The aero isn't what it is. Well, I'm assuming it's the aero because they've got the Mercedes power unit in there and it looks to be going okay in the, in the Mercedes, in the McLaren and in certain track types, the Alpine as well. I don't know, it's just not gone well.
• 19:29
  Speaker C: No, not at all.
• 19:30
  Speaker E: What else. What else happened? Franco Colapinto finishing seventh, was it?
• 19:37
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker E: Good race for him.
• 19:40
  Speaker C: It's another situation. Oscar probably would have gotten by him if we were at another racetrack because he was right on his ass for. For quite a bit. But good on him.
• 19:49
  Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. I mean, actually it was towards the end. There was some good battles with Piastro and Piastri Colapinto and who was, who else was with them? I forget who the third car was. They were all battling, and then you got.
• 20:04
  Speaker C: Was it Liam?
• 20:06
  Speaker E: It could well have been. Yeah. And then you'd got more battles throughout a little further up the field as well, which, when you got Charles leclerc out there on his hard tires still, you're thinking, could Ferrari have played a blinder right here and a late safety car with people battling? But it just wasn't to be. And you know, Charles, he had to pit when he did because George was coming up fast and he needed to get onto a fresher tie. He put the softs on and was able to stay ahead, but even then, it did feel like he was struggling to keep that gap to George behind him. George coming in obviously, in sixth. Was it?
• 20:48
  Speaker D: No, he came fifth. Right behind.
• 20:50
  Speaker E: He was fifth. Yeah.
• 20:51
  Speaker D: Okay.
• 20:52
  Speaker E: Yeah. But it's. That's not where he should be finishing if he's going to challenge for the title, is it?
• 20:59
  Speaker D: That's. It's all over. Right. Keep saying it's even more over than it was before. We thought it was over.
• 21:05
  Speaker E: Yeah. But now we're in the position where it's like we've got. How many races left? 9ish. I don't even know. I've lost count at this point in time. But there's gonna come a point where they have to make a decision if they're gonna get a Qatar or Abu Dhabi, because if they wait too long and then tanks Abu Dhabi in Qatar, then. Well, it hasn't officially yet, but you don't want to be in a position where they cancel Abu Dhabi and Qatar at the end of the season on a random Tuesday afternoon, and it makes it impossible for anyone to catch Kimmy and his world champion on a Tuesday.
• 21:38
  Speaker D: That. That could very well happen. It's a good point. Like, Las Vegas could be the last. No, but I saw somewhere that. Did I see a rumor? Is that a rumor, or was that an announcement that they were going to go and race Imola? Imola.
• 21:51
  Speaker E: Yeah, that's. That's kind of a rumor.
• 21:53
  Speaker D: Okay.
• 21:54
  Speaker E: But there's. I mean, just as it is that you've got to make a call for the world championship also, the teams have got to start moving their stuff around to get to Qatar and Abu Dhabi. After Vegas, they need to make plans to move things. And if they're going to move things, it's like, are they moving to Qatar or they're going to go to Italy? They've got to figure it out real soon.
• 22:16
  Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. There's only what we got. Yeah. Azerbaijan, Singapore, U.S. mexico, Brazil, Vegas.
• 22:23
  Speaker E: There's Bahrain in there as well. Slash, Malaysia, right. Oh, before Singapore, right?
• 22:32
  Speaker C: Oh, ok. Malaysia. The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
• 22:37
  Speaker E: The Malaysian Grand Prix of Bahrain. Is it the People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front? Isn't it? I don't. Do you know that reference, Jason from the Lion?
• 22:51
  Speaker C: Yes. I'm a big Monty Python fan.
• 22:54
  Speaker D: Splitters.
• 22:59
  Speaker C: But mostly, mostly a Holy Grail and meaning of life fan.
• 23:04
  Speaker D: There you go.
• 23:05
  Speaker E: This is John Smith. He's chosen how he wants to die.
• 23:12
  Speaker D: This is more interesting than the race, this conversation.
• 23:14
  Speaker C: I mean, I. I could just quote, you know, sing some. You know, every. Every sperm is sacred for you guys. And that's probably more exciting than the race was itself, you know, so, yeah, I think. I think we've covered it.
• 23:27
  Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker E: I mean, one thing we haven't covered. It's Aaban next. The race is on Saturday. So Azerbaijan Independence Day or some other public holiday is on the Sunday. And so they're having the race on the Saturday. So, guys, be careful, listeners, if you're getting, you know, making sure you watch stuff, Thursday is practice, Friday is qualifying, and the race is on Saturday.
• 23:55
  Speaker D: Is that Saturday? September 26th. Is that right? Is that.
• 23:58
  Speaker C: I guess so, yeah.
• 24:00
  Speaker E: 25th. 26th. Yes. Yes. 26th.
• 24:03
  Speaker D: Oh, man, that's some good stuff. Glad I listened to this podcast. I would totally.
• 24:09
  Speaker C: I had no idea he'd be waiting
• 24:11
  Speaker E: to put his picks in. Finished already?
• 24:15
  Speaker D: All right. All right.
• 24:17
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 24:18
  Speaker D: One of those. That would be a good trivia question.
• 24:20
  Speaker C: Well, I guess that brings us to coops.
• 24:23
  Speaker D: Oh, I'm surprised you brought it up, Jason. You didn't want to just skip over it. You had a. You had a bit of a shocker.
• 24:30
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 24:31
  Speaker D: After losing a spot because of Gasly's podium loss in. In Monaco. Yeah. But never rains it.
• 24:39
  Speaker C: Pause. Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker D: Top scores this week, Uriel Glz and Baby Doofus with 260 points. And friend of mine, Juan Pablo, 250 points past cup winner, but for the Overall standings, top two, still the same. Tulo 75 and Beaver Tarot 01 and two tablet ID up to third. But yeah, Jason, you've dropped down five spots to ninth, unfortunately.
• 25:14
  Speaker E: No good top ten. How's our friend? Toto's undevascher?
• 25:18
  Speaker D: Toto's undevasched. Go. Stayed the same at 12th, just outside the top 10. Don't fall below Toto's. You don't want to be beneath Toto's underbrush, Jason. Nobody does nasty down there, Nick up three places to 36. And I dropped six places down to 80th. So, I mean, Jason, you just gotta. Your dream of getting that cup next to your name, you gotta buckle down.
• 25:51
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's slipping away from me right now.
• 25:55
  Speaker D: No, no, no, no. You got plenty of time. Plenty of. You're only. You're literally like 11 points off of fifth. You know, you're only 50 points off of. Off of third, so. All right, lots to. Lots to play for.
• 26:08
  Speaker C: Still time.
• 26:10
  Speaker D: Still time, exactly. But I better check my calendar for coupes, F1, make sure everything's right. Now this Azerbaijan bombshell dropped and then. Yeah. Work out what's going on with other races at Imola and elsewhere. Keep.
• 26:22
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 26:23
  Speaker D: Watch this space.
• 26:26
  Speaker C: Well, I mean, anything else you guys think we missed? No.
• 26:31
  Speaker D: Short and sweet, but
• 26:34
  Speaker E: I'm impressed that we managed to stretch it out to almost 28 minutes. To be honest, it was not a thriller. Hopefully it'll be better next time. We saw this in Baku, the first race, everyone tiptoed around and it was a very dull race. But then, since then, it's been quite entertaining. So, I don't know, there have been discussions or rumors that they're going to start looking at what changes can be made to the Madrid circuit between. Now to the Madrid circuit to make it easier to overtake, to open up. I think turn five and do some stuff. But I think fundamentally they need to change the layout of the back section of the track. I mean, the start finish and that first bit, because they go under the highway and onto what was just a blank piece of paper. And there's still quite a lot of land there that they can do stuff with. But they've got to do something to make a better overtaking zone because it's just. Yeah, it's probably fun to drive in qualifying, but it's terrible to race on.
• 27:30
  Speaker D: And Baku. Baku has that massive straight. Right, Baku. So we're going to see, like, some clipping again. Like people.
• 27:38
  Speaker C: Sure, yeah. Speeding up.
• 27:40
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 27:40
  Speaker E: It's going to be Mercedes again. I think that when you think about who was good in Monza, really, it was Mercedes. Ferrari were disappointing. I don't quite know why they were. McLaren won't be as good because their gear ratios are a little shorter than everyone else's, so they struggle on the top speed. So down the straight, they're just going to get picked off. Potential for a Max victory, maybe.
• 28:04
  Speaker D: Yeah. And you've got that crazy tight corner through the castle section. Right. That Leclerc always seems to find himself nose in.
• 28:13
  Speaker C: Well, Max had a victory today. Didn't he reverse a hundred cars?
• 28:19
  Speaker D: I haven't, I've seen some clips of that. I've only. I haven't seen much of it. Yeah, he, he raced against 100 kids in Go karts or something.
• 28:26
  Speaker C: I saw him pass like 68 people in like the first lap or something.
• 28:31
  Speaker E: Yeah, I saw like a second corner. He basically went across the grass on the inside. He cut the whole thing.
• 28:36
  Speaker D: He got 30 seconds. He didn't give the places back.
• 28:39
  Speaker E: Now he's a good place to back.
• 28:43
  Speaker D: Max is like, I want to race this every week. This is real racing.
• 28:53
  Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Undercuts review of the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And join us next time for our review of the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
• 29:07
  Speaker C: We'll see you there.
• 29:08
  Speaker E: Get a.