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The Undercut is Back for Season 5! 2026 Formula 1 Season Preview. · The Undercut

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to the Undercut's first episode of season five. We're so excited to be back for the 2026 Formula One season and sharing it all with you. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy the show.
• 0:19
  Speaker B: By being a racing driver, you are
• 0:21
  Speaker A: under risk all the time.
• 0:23
  Speaker B: By being a racing driver means you.
• 0:25
  Speaker A: You are racing with other people.
• 0:27
  Speaker B: And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver.
• 0:32
  Speaker A: Well, boys, we're back for season five, I believe, of the Undercut, the 2026 Formula One season, and one with some crazy regulation changes, which makes A, you know, McLaren finally getting on top and then having a regulation change, you know, makes me a little nervous. But it looks like the field is. Is shaken up a bit with these, with these new role changes
• 1:01
  Speaker B: we, we need. As a Ferrari fan, we need the changes because we weren't going anywhere the last few years, so. Yeah, but everything's different, right? New engines, more battery, different energy recovery, new aero rules, less downforce, less drag. No more drs. You know, it's. It's different all over the place. Oh, yeah.
• 1:32
  Speaker A: So I was reading, like, the new. The new modes, and I still can't really figure it out. I mean, there's the. The overtake button, which is like, there's one detection point per lap, and if they're within a second, they can use it throughout the whole lap. But there's also a boost button and straight mode.
• 1:56
  Speaker C: Yeah, so it's like straight mode is really just a. To make up for the fact that the cars don't have enough energy to get off, to get out of the corners and go down the straight. So reduce the drag, reduce the load on the battery, because the battery's now providing 50% of the power. Well, 45, 55, whatever it is, battery to engine. And that was always the limiting factor, was that with the downforce levels and the drag with fixed wings, you're not going to be able to recover enough power to get off the line to get to the end of the straight. So they took away drag to make it possible. That's why it's fully active aero. Now the overtake essentially just replaces drs, so it gives you more power when you're within a second to make a move on the car in front. So think of that like the, like drs.
• 3:03
  Speaker A: And then you can use it through the whole lap, though, right? It's not just in certain points. Like, there's one detection point per lap.
• 3:10
  Speaker C: There's one detection point. Yeah.
• 3:12
  Speaker A: But then can't you use it for the whole lap? That's a good point.
• 3:15
  Speaker C: I don't know. I'd looked at it in the same way as drs, but from that perspective. Yeah, you can only use it when you're in within a second. I don't know where that detection point's gonna be. And then the boost mode. Yeah, the boost mode is just the same as the old overtake. You know, when people used to say, you have overtake available, it's just an additional bit of power that they can use occasionally to. But it depletes their battery much quicker, obviously. And the batteries are going to be derating and charging multiple top line times per lap. So you've got to manage the. Manage how you harvest the energy throughout the whole lap, because otherwise you're just going to run out of juice.
• 4:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's not clear to me the difference between there's straight mode, overtake mode and boost mode. And they're all used in different. Straight mode you can use whenever you want. Like rear wings open and close all the time.
• 4:17
  Speaker A: That's just on the strakes, right?
• 4:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. Every available. Every lap, you know, no gap to the front, doesn't matter. Overtake mode. You get an extra 350kW of electric boost when you're within 1 second of the car ahead. I don't know how. I don't know how much. 350 kilowatts of electric boost translates into miles per hour. They used to say DRS was what, an additional 10, 15 miles an hour? But then on top of that, on top of that, you've got boost mode, max power deployment usable at any point on the lap. But I guess that's the one where you're going to really mess up your battery and really suck the energy. Yes. You can't just keep using that to defend somebody overtaking. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. They're going to have to come up with some graphics, right, to show us where the cars are, you know, and what sort of energy they have available to them. I assume otherwise you're just going to be guessing why can't they overtake? Or can. And can they. Can they produce those kind of graphics? I haven't seen anything in the testing.
• 5:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, the Apple TV broadcast. Right.
• 5:24
  Speaker B: All right.
• 5:25
  Speaker A: I guess they're just playing sky, right? They're just going to be playing the
• 5:28
  Speaker C: S1 TV broadcast, so. But you have an option to switch to the sky broadcast as well, right?
• 5:37
  Speaker B: Right. Yeah, but, yeah, all the. All the battery charging just comes from the. The engine now. Right. There's no heat. It used to be the battery charging was from the heat of the car. Right, The MGU h. So you had
• 5:49
  Speaker C: the NGU h and you had the MGU k. The MGU k is what recovers the energy into the battery from braking and deceleration. The MGU h was harnessing the power from the turbo. Sorry, Harnessing the power from the exhaust to spool the turbo out of the corners. That's the technology that Audi don't have. And so that's why when F1 was wanting Audi to come in, they said, okay, we'll do away with the MGUH Audi, because you don't know how to do it. So let's get rid of that one.
• 6:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, they lowered the barrier to entry. Yeah, for sure.
• 6:28
  Speaker C: But also that's the deciding factor in the need to have the active arrow, because all of the energy that you were getting from the MGUH is now no longer available to you. So you can't harvest enough with the. With the fixed rear wings. Sorry, with the fixed wings, front and rear.
• 6:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, there's too much drag.
• 6:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, just quickly, I'm getting. There's a lot of gain on your voice. I don't know if you've got the gain turned up on your microphone, but, like, when you directly into it, it kind of vibrates a little. It's a little bit harsh.
• 6:57
  Speaker B: Is that better? Is that worse?
• 6:59
  Speaker C: Speak loudly, straight at the microphone.
• 7:06
  Speaker B: Oh, hang on. Gain. There we go. There's a. There's a button on the back that says gain. I turned it down. I was telling you. What? All right. Is that. Is that better? Sorry. Okay. Yeah, I couldn't hear that at all. All right, Restart the whole thing.
• 7:20
  Speaker C: No, no, I was just waiting for an appropriate moment to just jump in.
• 7:26
  Speaker B: But this, the electric motor not being able to spool the turbo, and the turbo now only being spooled by the engine has added this additional issue right now of the start line procedure.
• 7:39
  Speaker C: Oh, go on then, Mr. Ferrari, tell us all about it.
• 7:43
  Speaker B: Well, they've taken. They've already. They've already taken it away, so they've changed it. So, yeah, they said that the engines had to rev for a good, like, 10 seconds to get the turbo going for the start, but there wasn't enough time in the regular start procedure. There wasn't enough time between the last car stopping on the grid and the lights beginning, which are, you know, nominally five seconds because it's one second per Light and then a. And then a hold of up. I don't know what the hold is up to. Up to three seconds, maybe, something like that. It's a random number, but there wasn't enough time. So Ferrari absolutely went with a smaller turbo to.
• 8:23
  Speaker C: For that reason.
• 8:23
  Speaker B: For that reason, faster to go, to pull up quicker. But yeah, when they did practice starts. Yeah, for Hamilton, definitely got a good practice start from what we saw, whether you can, you know, take that to the bank or not. But they've changed it now and now they're going to add an extra five seconds to the whole process. So there's going to be a blue light that comes on when the last car gets onto the grid. That's the signal for everybody to start revving their engines, get their turbos up. But they've also said. So the idea is that you've all got your turbos running for the start. I suppose so for maybe disadvantage Ferrari, because you've now got a smaller turbo and the advantage you hoped you would gain is not there. And they've also said no active aero on the starts. So you can't have your aero open, as it were, to use a DRS term, on the starts now. Otherwise it's just low downforce, just, you know, crashing into. Crashing into the 22 cars with no downforce and cold brakes going into the first corner.
• 9:29
  Speaker C: So, yeah, I can see the sense in that.
• 9:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, straight mode band at the start, five second hold. So, yeah, unfortunately, you know, but Ferrari, they've still, they've still got their fully rotating rear wing though, that nobody else has. Right. That's their other technological.
• 9:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:54
  Speaker C: I'm curious if they'll actually bring it out during a race.
• 9:58
  Speaker B: Oh, you think that's not standard. I thought they were just going to go with that. Or is it they just.
• 10:02
  Speaker C: No, well, I don't know. I think it was just one of those things that they just bolted on the car to see if it worked. See, you know, if it gives you, you know, they're just hunting for data and I think that this is really impressive that Ferrari have that kind of. Let's try like some really crazy stuff to see what happens. The difference, I think obviously with drs, it was that you'd hit the brake and it would close.
• 10:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:27
  Speaker C: With the active aero, I think it's entirely driver actuated. Certainly the time it takes for that rear wing to turn, you clearly couldn't do that with based on the brake because you hit the brake and if that's what started that rotation you'd be off the track before it turned.
• 10:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 10:49
  Speaker C: So I think that's, you know, if. If others are activated in the same way as drs and you can do it that way, that innovation surely couldn't be because I think the maximum amount of time that they permit is 0.4 of a second for the transition between the low downforce configuration, low drag configuration rather, and, you know, full, full downforce, it has to.
• 11:15
  Speaker B: Has to complete that rotation within, yeah,
• 11:17
  Speaker C: 400 milliseconds, but around, what, 270 something.
• 11:21
  Speaker B: 227 degrees or 225 degrees, I think they said it goes.
• 11:25
  Speaker C: Is that what it was?
• 11:26
  Speaker B: Okay, the, The. The stats. I see, you know, that the. What that people are coming up with, they're saying that the. It produces a small amount of lift, significantly less drag than the alternate configurations. But of course, partway through that rotation, it's like a sail. Right. It's like either acting like a massive brake, maybe to help you slow down, or it's acting like a massive brake to stop you speeding up just for a fraction of a second. But I guess that's, you know, there's a risk there that the wing could detach. Right. It's a lot of load going through these things, so it looks like it would.
• 12:03
  Speaker A: Right?
• 12:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's, you know, they got. They've got the most advanced engineering in the world. You'd assume that they could handle that. But, yeah, reliability, risk, you know, who knows? I think it's great. I think it's sort of harks back to the fan era and six wheels and, you know, winglets and, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff.
• 12:30
  Speaker C: It's a cool innovation.
• 12:31
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker C: I think it definitely piqued people's interest, and it was definitely something that the podcasts had something to talk about last week.
• 12:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's not often you come up with something like, completely new that nobody else is using.
• 12:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess the only other thing about the new cars that we've talked about is just the size of them in general, that they're so much smaller. Do you think they're going to be able to pass at Monaco this year?
• 12:58
  Speaker B: No, that's not going to change anything, but, I mean, yeah, smaller. Smaller and lighter cars. I mean, quicker in a straight line. I, I think certainly with this active arrow. Right. Possibly slow around, but slow around the corners, maybe more. More, you know, harder on the brakes.
• 13:16
  Speaker C: The tires are slightly narrow. Well, the tires are a little narrower as well, so less grip. From what I hear, there's quite a bit of torque coming out the corners with, you know, with the electricity and the turbo all kind of working together. So coming out of the corners, they speed up much quicker and then obviously with a. With no drag. I'm curious as to see. I'm curious to see the speed traps, you know, that we're used to seeing it like maybe 200, 210 miles an hour. Are they going to be up closer to 2:30 on some of these tracks? I mean, Monza?
• 13:52
  Speaker A: I don't know.
• 13:52
  Speaker C: Because they're saying the overall downforce levels are going to be similar to what they had at Monza last year at a maximum. As a baseline. As a baseline, yeah.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 14:03
  Speaker C: So.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 14:05
  Speaker C: You know, I think it's going to be. I can see situations where unless people have got it fully nailed down, they're going to be sliding a bit coming out of the corners and losing a bit of time. And the people who are got it nailed down might be able to. There might be overtaking in places that we haven't usually seen overtaking for the last few years.
• 14:26
  Speaker B: Almost.
• 14:29
  Speaker C: Go on.
• 14:29
  Speaker B: Well, I was going to say almost video game style. Right. If you have this extra boost.
• 14:34
  Speaker C: That's my. I was going to go with my Mario Kart analogy here, is that
• 14:42
  Speaker B: are
• 14:43
  Speaker C: we going to get situations, especially with the overtake mode and the depleting battery, where you got someone who's maybe defending a position or someone who's successfully used the battery and the overtake mode to get past someone and then they get by and then coming out of the next corner, they've just got no power and the person who's just been overtaken just. Or the person behind just sails buying waves and throws a tortoise at them or something.
• 15:11
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's probably going to come down. I don't know what the difference in the battery technology is. Are all the batteries provided by the same manufacturer? I don't know. But the engine manufacturing, there's six different constructors now, engine constructors on the grid, which is a lot more than we've had, you know, many years. So there could be massive differences between some of these engines. I mean, we have Mercedes at the top, supposedly, with their advanced compression ratios that they've managed to somehow manufacture, which potentially they might have nullified that come Monaco, where they're going to change the way they measure these compression ratios. But there's something there. They seem to be the front runners with maybe Ferrari behind them.
• 15:58
  Speaker A: Vegas has George way ahead for the championship win right now.
• 16:02
  Speaker B: And then all the way down to Honda at the bottom supplying Aston Martin, who just don't even have the bits to put together an engine, it seems.
• 16:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:13
  Speaker C: And I hear that like, the max deployment of the electrical power is supposed to be 450 kilowatts, I think. And there has been discussion around if worst case scenario, batteries aren't lasting or there's like craziness going on that to take IT down to 250 kilowatt deployment, which will obviously then extend the ability of the battery to survive the lap without running completely dry. But apparently Honda is struggling to even get to the 250k deployment, which is putting them massively on the back foot. And I read in an article yesterday that the vibrations from the V6 power unit are causing the hybrid components to just break.
• 17:01
  Speaker B: Right.
• 17:02
  Speaker C: So it's like, yeah, they'll get some laps in because I think how many laps have they done in qualifying? I don't think they've done in qualifying in practice, the test sessions, rather not that many. Not even can complete a race distance.
• 17:17
  Speaker B: Not even what you would complete on a weekend. Like a weekend is possibly, you know, what, 50 to 70 laps of racing plus, you know, practice and qualifying. You know, even if you only do qualifying one and then get knocked out, you're still trying to do 100 laps. And they haven't even done that in practice.
• 17:36
  Speaker C: I mean, it's been a, a bad, bad, bad start for, for Aston Martin. I think there's, there's rumors that they're basically going to do the formation lap and then pull into the garage. That would be a disaster for them. They've, you know, they're, they're blaming that, like, obviously Newey came in and they've, they're four months behind. It's like, well, what were you doing all of that time? You know? Yeah, yeah, I don't think there's no excuses. They've just not delivered and they have to fix it. But look at their track record over the last few years of in season development. What makes makes them think that they're going to get a handle on it? You know, you go back to 2023 with Fernando Alonso and the, the crazy start to the season that they had they, you know, Alonso on the podiums overtaking Ferraris in Bahrain and then over the course of the season, that in season development has just never, ever delivered. Obviously they've got a, you know, a lot of gains to make, probably hopefully quite cheaply, but they're way off the back right now.
• 18:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. So who are we saying? Mercedes and are we saying Ferrari in there? I don't want to put them in there myself, but Mercedes and Ferrari are the top two teams. I mean, Mercedes are maybe slightly one step ahead of them.
• 18:54
  Speaker C: Was the fastest in the Bahrain tests.
• 18:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I.
• 19:01
  Speaker C: But how much Mercedes got in them? How much Mercedes have in the back pocket?
• 19:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, probably a lot. I feel like Toto is the guy that does that kind of right. More than anybody else. He's the guy that would hold back.
• 19:13
  Speaker B: He's like, don't go out there and like, and put and throw down sparkling times and top, top the timesheets. Whereas, you know, Ferrari want, want that recognition of. Because they've done a lot. I think Ferrari have done more innovations. They've come with a car that's do it. They've done everything slightly different and they're hoping it all pays off with the, the turbo, the rear wing, the exhaust. You know, they're hoping that that all comes together for a faster car. But, yeah, Mercedes seem to have the, the better reliability they did, the more laps than anybody else.
• 19:48
  Speaker C: Well, they also have four teams providing data in. You know, they should have their customers in McLaren, Williams and now Alpine, now that Renault have decided they've been off their engine project because they couldn't do it very well.
• 20:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:03
  Speaker C: And so they have to provide the same spec engine to McLaren and to Williams and to Alpine. So everyone should get the benefit of that. It's just going to be interesting where that engine, when it's really turned up, is relative to the others, right?
• 20:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, I have Mercedes as seemingly the best team and Ferrari and McLaren not far apart from each other, but a little bit behind Mercedes is my guess. I mean, it's all a guess at this point. Right.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: Of course.
• 20:39
  Speaker C: And they've said that the Red Bull engine is harvesting energy a lot more efficiently than other than the other engines. That's what people think, or they were thinking in a couple of weeks ago, that if you can harvest energy a lot more quickly and a lot more effectively, it doesn't matter what the engine is doing, you've got more power than everyone else. So it's going to be interesting to see if the battery component on the Red Bull works better. And then obviously that's gonna mean overtaking for the Red Bulls is gonna be easier than it is for other teams.
• 21:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Red Bull's running their own engine. Right. Is it a Ford engine in conjunction?
• 21:21
  Speaker C: No, it's their own Ford badges. That's Ford don't really have Much to contribute in high performance engines as anyone who owns a Ford will know. But Red Bull stood up.
• 21:36
  Speaker A: They.
• 21:36
  Speaker C: They created the company probably what 20, 21 when Honda decided that they were going to step back and there was a transition obviously then Honda decided they were getting back in. But they lost all of their intellectual property to Red Bull at that point and then had to build an engine for Aston Martin which was seemingly terrible.
• 21:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Speaker C: But Red Bull, you know, I think Max, the Max factor in all of this was always a question around. Are Red Bull going to be able to deliver an engine that's going to be able to enable Max to compete?
• 22:10
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:11
  Speaker C: Otherwise Max is out the door at the end of the season going to Aston Martin because their works Honda. I think that's obviously dampened down quite a bit over based on what we've just been talking about. But if Mercedes are the class of the field, you know what a Red Bull going to be able to give Max to keep him. I think the engine was the unknown in all of that and they've done a really a pretty decent job. I say that before the season started and we really know. But early indications are that it's. It's all right.
• 22:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. So who come. Who's next? You got like Haas, Alpine, Williams and racing bulls. They're all kind of in. In the middle somewhere. You know, potentially juking it out. I mean historically that's been the case. Alpine, nobody really knows.
• 22:55
  Speaker A: You think because they have a Mercedes engine.
• 22:59
  Speaker B: Right. I mean they had a terrible 2025. Right. I think they were dead last in the Constructors.
• 23:05
  Speaker C: You guys watched any of Drive to Survive yet? I'm seven episodes in.
• 23:12
  Speaker A: You got to the Alpine episode at least I've seen pretty early on.
• 23:17
  Speaker C: Yeah. It's the rookie episode. Right. I think. Or is it one of the earlier ones?
• 23:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:21
  Speaker B: Fucking.
• 23:22
  Speaker C: Holy crap.
• 23:23
  Speaker A: He's such a dick.
• 23:24
  Speaker C: Oh, the difference between like Kimmy and how Kimmy and then it's basically about the rookies color Pinto just. And obviously Jack Doohan. It's like you really see the difference between how other rookie drivers are being treated and the Alpine guys under Flavio.
• 23:50
  Speaker B: It's given. I haven't seen it give an example. Was he just being brutal? Like he was just screaming at them? Yeah.
• 23:56
  Speaker A: There's one scene where Kyle Pinto had a not great race and he's just like it was all your fault. You suck.
• 24:02
  Speaker C: You are the problem.
• 24:03
  Speaker B: I think
• 24:06
  Speaker A: in front of like a bunch of people. You didn't like pull him into an office or anything. It was like A casual conversation. He's just like, yeah, that was all your fault, man.
• 24:15
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 24:19
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean it was, it was, it was an episode where they like compared him to Jonathan Wheatley who's like this super sweet guy who's super uplifting to everybody in the whole entire team. It was just a crazy difference between the two.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, well they, they should be do. They should do better this year. I mean Carlo Pinto got nowhere last year. Right. He took over from Jack do and still didn't get they. Jack Doom didn't get any points. Colapinto got no points. You know, they've got a shot now with like you said with the Mercedes engine. Should be a significant improvement. You know, let's see what they can do.
• 24:56
  Speaker C: Yeah. And like you said, they could be the, the best of the rest. I think Haas have come out looking pretty decent as well. It's going to be interesting to see you know, just like with Ferrari and Mercedes at the, you know, the, you know, the mainline teams, the manufacturer teams battling it out. But where if Haas going to be relative to the Mercedes customer engine teams that same dynamic that exists between Ferrari and Mercedes, you know, in particular off the line and what's going to happen there out of corners it's going to carry through to Haas as well. So you know Aya Komatsu obviously he's. This is his third year definitely steering the ship in the direction of getting a lot for their money.
• 25:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 25:46
  Speaker C: And we've talked about drive to survive a little bit but it's like I say, I haven't seen the last episode yet but it's just basically now Zach Brown and Christian Horner show. It's just there's just too much of the team principals, not enough of the drivers and they've shut it and they've taken it down from 10 episodes to eight. So we're getting shortchanged. It feels like you know the, you know just everything else in the post Covid world where we pay for one thing and we get 80% of the portion and it's not exactly what we wanted in the first place but it's still F1 so we're still watching it and still enjoying it. Just like give us a bit more of what we want to see the behind the scenes with the drivers and that kind of thing without the team principals in tow.
• 26:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. Although the, they, they did, they did seem to not talk about the real issue with the whole Christian Horner thing other than him getting fired. But they kind of didn't really talk about, you know, what was actually going on, which was interesting.
• 26:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Well, so then it comes to Cadillac and the two new teams. Cadillac, they've done all right. I, I think at the end of last season, I, I guess I'm just a pessimist. I was like, you know, are they going to make the 107%? I think that no one's really talking about them in the context of the 107%, even themselves now. I think, you know, coming out of the testing, they've, you know, they're obviously, they've got the steepest learning curve of everyone. They're basically, you know, it's not like Audi, who have everything that happened before, a lot of heritage with Sauber and then it's just a, you know, the new Audi engine and everything else kind of carries on. Cadillac have come at it from standing start. Obviously they've got the Ferrari power unit, so they're in the same boat there with Haas and Ferrari, but they look like they've done a solid job. We'll have to see how it comes. I mean, I still expect them to be at the back with Aston Martin. We'll have to see how that shakes out relative to Aston and Audi seemed to have produced a decent engine. Obviously Audi and Honda only provide one engine, so they've got a lot less data than Mercedes in particular. But, yeah, I think that they've both made a good account for themselves and I'm looking forward to seeing all the way through the field, whether it be the top four teams and how they're battling and then the middle four or five teams and how they're battling and then seeing how well. And then the last three with. With Aston Martin down there as well, with. With Cadillac and with. With Audi to see what it looks like when they hit the track this weekend.
• 28:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm having a hard time feeling bad for Aston Martin, if I'm being totally honest.
• 28:54
  Speaker C: Same.
• 28:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, agreed. Maybe.
• 28:57
  Speaker C: Maybe it's all a cunning plan to get Lance stroll to retire.
• 29:02
  Speaker B: Maybe. Yeah.
• 29:08
  Speaker A: I mean, that would be the dream scenario, right?
• 29:13
  Speaker C: Yeah. It's going to be interesting, though. I mean, yeah, if it's a shocking year. Yeah. Lance could say, you know, that wasn't fun. I'm not doing this anymore. Fernando could go, yeah, I'm out. I don't want any more of this. And then who's on the pipeline? Because Max Verstappen's clearly not going to be going there until, you know, he's not even going to entertain the idea of going there until they've demonstrated that they could compete at the front and, you know, potentially Yuki with the Honda connection, who knows? It's going to be interesting. I mean, we are obviously jumping the gun by a year in terms of what's going on for 2027, but it's a pivotal year for Aston Martin. Sure.
• 30:02
  Speaker B: Is Yuki still at Red Bull as a reserve driver?
• 30:05
  Speaker C: Yeah, he is.
• 30:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Because only one, basically, it's just Lynnblad is the only true rookie.
• 30:13
  Speaker C: He's the only rookie this year.
• 30:15
  Speaker B: Everybody else is either in the same seat they were in last year or driving for the Rebadge team.
• 30:21
  Speaker C: Yeah. And despite the weird name, he is, in fact British.
• 30:27
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 30:28
  Speaker C: Yes. Another Brit on the grid.
• 30:30
  Speaker B: Another Brit. Yeah, Lots of Brits, for sure.
• 30:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. No Americans, Just, you know, maybe Logan Sergeant will come back.
• 30:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. But two American teams, though, in Cadillac and Haas, so you've got a lot to cheer for.
• 30:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. And Hass, I mean, like Nick said, Haas looks really good. I mean, Bearman was in the top six for the last day of testing, whatever that means, but we'll see.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, this is what, this is what we're going to have for the next five years. These regulations. Right. Supposedly they're locked in for five years. So we all saw where McLaren was, you know, four years ago. They were almost dead last and right over the, you know, clawed their way back into it and everybody closed the gap to Red Bull. So I bet you there's going to be one team that just gets it right isn't the right word, but gets it more right than anybody else. That could be Mercedes. That's my biggest fear, actually, is that we just end up with another Max Verstappen style dominant season. It got really exciting last year with multiple people all fighting for the championship. I mean, I guess it would be good if two drive, even if it's just two drivers from the same team fighting. But I don't see Kimmy. You think Kimmy could hang with George? If those two guys are way well ahead, Hamilton would definitely fight with leclerc. Hamilton and Claire would be more interesting if those. If they're the dominant car.
• 31:59
  Speaker A: That would be amazing.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. And of course, we saw, you know, McLaren. Those two guys have the papaya rules. They'll fight with each other to some degree. You know, you think that Max is somewhat untouchable.
• 32:14
  Speaker C: When you look at the driver lineups and you kind of think, well, you've got one idea of, well, who's going to be winning the driver's championship? I think to your, to your point is Is Kimmy going to hang with George? Probably not. Is Max. Is Isak gonna. Gonna hang with Max? Probably not. Then you're at Charles leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. They, you know, Ferrari could be in. Even if they're not winning the driver's championship. Could be in. A good shout for the constructors. Similarly with McLaren because they've got solid driver lineup. Both drivers contributing points. I'm super keen to see how Hajar does against Max. I think the flattering component here is that obviously we came to the end of the rule cycle over the last couple of years, which meant that if you were a third of a second, 0.4 of a second behind Max, you were 15 places back. Further back down the grid, you know, the field spread is going to be larger. So, yeah, even if ha. 3 to 4, 10 behind max in qualifying, maybe he's only a couple of spots behind him on the grid and then obviously that's a different race. You're in the points and kind of keeping up a little bit more so than maybe Yuki and Checo the year before.
• 33:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's all. That's why we watch. That's how we're going to find out what it's going to be. I'm excited.
• 33:38
  Speaker A: Me too.
• 33:38
  Speaker B: Just gotta make sure. Get your. Get your coupes, F1 picks in before the season starts. I'll send out another reminder tomorrow. That's right. On the website right now. It's got. People are picking, like you said, Russell. Oh, no, sorry. Matt Overstappen is the consensus first pick right now, Lando second, Russell third. So goes to show what we think. Compared to the coupes, F1rasses, and they have Sergio Perez in 10th, which is insane. Right? That can't be right.
• 34:09
  Speaker A: That'd be awesome.
• 34:11
  Speaker B: That would be awesome. That'd be an amazing debut for a team to get points, but highly unlikely. But we'll see.
• 34:21
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker A: I mean, look at the F1 movie. It took them like four years to get a single point.
• 34:26
  Speaker B: You know, what's the. What are the. What are the timings for the Grand Prix for us here on the east coast of America? It's late at night.
• 34:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker B: Friday night for qualifying, Saturday night for the race.
• 34:41
  Speaker A: It's gonna be like early in the morning probably. Qualifying's at midnight Saturday.
• 34:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:49
  Speaker A: And then the race. Midnight on Sunday.
• 34:52
  Speaker B: So I get. Yeah, I guess Saturday going into Sunday. Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
• 34:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:58
  Speaker A: All right. Anything else you guys think we missed?
• 35:06
  Speaker C: No, looking forward to it. I'm just glad that it's back. I have something now to do on Sundays.
• 35:15
  Speaker B: Yeah not watch Sefer Wednesday lose to Southampton like you like last weekend.
• 35:19
  Speaker C: Nick I didn't see that either.
• 35:21
  Speaker B: Jeffer Wednesday losing to everybody. So it doesn't not that big of a deal.
• 35:25
  Speaker C: Thanks, Martin.
• 35:33
  Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening to the Undercuts Preview of the 2026 Formula One season. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And join us next week where we'll review the first race of the season, the 2026 Australian Grand Prix. We'll see you there.