Latest / The Undercut / Antonelli Dominates Austin, Title Almost Sealed - 2026 U.S. Grand Prix Review

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Antonelli Dominates Austin, Title Almost Sealed - 2026 U.S. Grand Prix Review · The Undercut

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2026 US Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen and enjoy the show.
• 0:19
  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.
• 0:32
  Speaker A: All right, boys. Well, it seems like we're getting to at least the end of the Drivers Championship discussion. Not that we haven't known that it's coming for a long time, but Kimmy, I mean, no one saw him dominating like this coming into the race weekend. We thought Mercedes looked on the downtick a bit, and maybe they are, but he is not. And another dominating win and he's almost sealed it officially.
• 1:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, he needs, what, two points this weekend to make it official? So, yeah, Russell and Hamilton did just enough to keep it alive.
• 1:11
  Speaker D: Yeah, if George wins, he is the champion if he finishes ninth. If Lewis wins, he's the champion. Champion if he finishes 10th. So basically he could have clinched the championship in Austin if Lewis had finished fifth or lower and George finished ninth or lower. But Lewis finished fourth and George finished ninth. So, you know, it's all over now. You know, he basically have to not finish a race for the rest of the season and George to win every race of the season for him not to be the champion now.
• 1:52
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean. I mean, all plaudits to Kimmy, but I mean, the. The differential between George and. And Kimmy is crazy right now. Like, George can't even get close. He's stuck down in eighth, ninth. It's crazy.
• 2:07
  Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, this race in particular in Austin, he was way off the back. I mean, he was the slowest of the top four teams. He just couldn't get it working at all. So. And Kimmy found something. I mean, for me, the most complete weekend of his career so far. Obviously, from a race perspective, you look back to Monza when he came from. What was it, 19th to win, that was just bonkers. But he had a new engine and we talked about it at the time. But in terms of an entire weekend just getting better and better and better and pulling it out in Q3 against the Ferraris, who were looking particularly good all through practice, Charles was ahead. All through qualifying, Lewis was ahead. But when it really came down to it in Q3, he got it done. He stuck it on pole and then just was pretty much untroubled for the race. He picked up the pace when he needed to when he looked like he got a bit of a challenge around the pit stop but really it was over from the start. Great drive from him.
• 3:13
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I just echo everything you just said. It, it looked like it was Ferraris to take going into the weekend. They had the, they had the pace and Mercedes look looked slow. They didn't have long run pace or single lap pace but apparently they did. You don't win anything on Friday, I guess. I don't think the old Formula one adage or something but yeah, I mean great from Kimmy, I mean right from the get go and we've in, in the past he's had his starts have not been great. He's tended to go backwards. Well he, he fixed that this time. He was like a rocket off the line and Verstappen couldn't get it hooked up at all and got swamped by the Ferraris and it was, you know, Kimmy had nothing to worry about going into the first corner. He has a couple of car lengths ahead.
• 4:06
  Speaker D: Yeah. And with Leclerc and Verstappen battling against one another, I don't know exactly what the gap was at the end of the first lap but that
• 4:15
  Speaker A: battle,
• 4:16
  Speaker D: yeah the battle between those two and having clear air ahead of him, he could just disappear and then really from that point on he was just managing,
• 4:26
  Speaker C: yeah 100%
• 4:28
  Speaker A: and he picked the, for leading the race and having the battle happening to happen behind him. He was on the medium tires where everyone behind him was on the soft tires and almost assuring that they were doing a two stop strategy and he was able to pull it out, make that one stop work for him and just dominate it.
• 4:51
  Speaker C: Was it one of those situations where Antonelli, you know, he doesn't need to win all these races, you know, as we just said, you know, he nearly won the whole championship last weekend. So medium might, maybe that was the sort of the less risky choice. Right. You don't have to put in fast laps and overtake people. Stay on the medium, you're on pole, see what the race gives you and then you know, finish top six or whatever, top five. You know he'd have been very happy with that especially if Russell and Hamilton were behind him or around him. No, no damage done. So I think the way it played out, it just played into his hands absolutely perfectly. And yeah, like you said, the one stop medium to hard, he did have to do some overtaking. Right. Once he put the hard tires on.
• 5:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, but he didn't even really have to.
• 5:42
  Speaker C: He was driving against people that were on, you know, used mediums or end of life softs. So he was able to get it done. But yeah, great, great drive from Kim. He didn't really put a foot, foot wrong. Other people were going off the track and bumping each
• 6:00
  Speaker D: other. Yeah, he's been one to suffer a little bit with the track limits. And I think at the end Bono came on the radio and was like, well, we only got one track Limits hit this week, so well done, you know, keeping it on the dance floor, so to speak. He's learning, I suppose, but I think that's definitely a sign of he was managing the race pace and not going flat out. He was managing the tires, managing the gap and driving with him in himself and the car, keeping it inside the white lines all the time. So I think the strategy was the right one. I know at the start I saw on the sky coverage, they got the strategy map up and the preferred strategy was medium to hard. One stop. They had alternate as being soft to the hard and then two stoppers. And when Toto was interviewed after the race, he said that their strategists said that there was about an eight second gap, you know, that it was eight seconds faster to do the one stop medium to hard. So that was the plan going in. I think that with this being a track where overtaking was possible, I think some of the people thought two stopper was probably going to be the right way, right stop, because there'd be more battling on track. And it ended up, I don't know, it ended up being kind of a boring race. I don't really remember already too much about the race itself. There were obviously the isolated incidents, but it just kind of felt like the race just kind of happened. And I don't know whether that's just because of the current engine regs, where, like Fernando Alonso said, the fast. I think it was when he said it in Suzuka, right, that the fast corners are basically the charging station for the battery. So, for example, you had Charles Leclerc using his battery through the S's on the first lap to get past Verstappen, but then was a sitting duck, not necessarily at the end of the straight, but when he was going through the stadium section, it just meant that Max Verstappen had that little bit more boost to put that little move up the inside turn, I think 15 or so, and. And got the move, got done past it. And I think that was actually part of the trouble that George had in his qualifying lap was that he was going too fast through The S's. And he just basically ran out of battery on the back straight. So he messed up the corner at the end of the last straight because he was going slower than he thought he was going to be. So he braked too early for the corner and ended up turning in too early, and that was, you know, the end of his lap. So these cars still don't like them. The new engine regs. I don't. I don't want to go off on a tangent, but we've obviously had some new engine regs announced as well. Potential move back to V8s. Can't come soon enough, but there we are.
• 9:12
  Speaker C: I mean, if what you just said broke my brain a little bit when you said maybe Russell went too fast through the corners. Yeah,
• 9:21
  Speaker D: but that's. These engines you use up. You're not. The fact that you're going faster means that you're using the battery up and not driving more conservatively and charging the battery or not using as much charge.
• 9:34
  Speaker C: Yeah. So I wouldn't say
• 9:36
  Speaker D: it then starts super clipping down the back straight and. Which forces him to be slower into the braking zone at the end of the straight. It's bonkers.
• 9:46
  Speaker C: I want to say that you're wrong, but I can't because it doesn't sound like it should be right. But you absolutely probably are.
• 9:53
  Speaker D: No, but it's like Charlotte Claire. I forget exactly where it was earlier in the season. Had a monumental first second corner or whatever at one of the qualifyings and as a result was half a second slower on the lap because the car was confused as to where it was on track.
• 10:14
  Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker A: Well, did they used to have those kind of issues, like back in the Williams days when they started using. What was it called?
• 10:25
  Speaker C: I mean, active suspension and all that
• 10:27
  Speaker A: kind
• 10:27
  Speaker C: of stuff?
• 10:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:29
  Speaker C: I mean, I don't know how. How that. How that worked
• 10:32
  Speaker A: because that kind of had the whole track, like, programmed into it as well. Right. I mean, I know it was like a less advanced computer probably than I'm using now, but.
• 10:40
  Speaker C: Did you read Adrian Newey's book? It probably tells you in there, but I've
• 10:44
  Speaker A: tried. I have it and I've tr. But it's so technical that it's just like. It's incredible. It's interesting, but I can't read a lot at a time.
• 10:52
  Speaker C: I mean, at least the energy management back in the 90s was just that you need this much fuel to finish the race. And there certainly were times when people ran out of fuel, you know, and. Or they had to save Fuel and, you know, weird incidents ensued. But, yeah, you didn't have this energy management between battery and.
• 11:12
  Speaker D: Yeah, and then you had days where there was refueling as well. So you just put more fuel in the car. Obviously, more fuel equals more weight, so you don't want
• 11:20
  Speaker C: to
• 11:21
  Speaker D: be carrying too much weight because that's time, but you just throw a bit more fuel in it, and then you just keep your foot down and drive like a racing driver should.
• 11:31
  Speaker C: That's a lot easier for us spectators to understand, isn't it, than battery harvesting and deployment strategies and, you know, whatever else we're dealing with right now. Super clipping. So George drove too fast through the corners. That's what ruined his laps. Okay, Got it. All right? Pretty much,
• 11:51
  Speaker D: yeah. Through the, Through. Through the first, through the first sector.
• 11:55
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 11:57
  Speaker C: Oh, man.
• 11:58
  Speaker A: But we did get three incidents on the first lap, and I don't know, tell me if I'm wrong, but it felt to me like the two that got penaltied and the one that did not should have been flipped around, that the one that did not get a penalty was, I think, Lind Vlad, like, closing in on Carlos. On
• 12:15
  Speaker D: Carlos, yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker C: Yeah. Carlos had nowhere to go, and Lindblad just sort of nudged him into the. Into the wall. Could have been.
• 12:22
  Speaker D: I don't think he was even looking. I
• 12:23
  Speaker C: don't think he was
• 12:24
  Speaker D: looking that way.
• 12:25
  Speaker C: Yeah,
• 12:25
  Speaker D: he didn't see him.
• 12:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. It was crazy. Like, I didn't understand why that did not get a penalty. But the ones that did get penalties, what was it? It was Ollie, right? Yeah,
• 12:37
  Speaker D: Ollie. And Pierre.
• 12:38
  Speaker A: And Pierre,
• 12:42
  Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, the Ollie and Pierre one. I, I, it feels like they penalized the outcome rather than the actual incident itself.
• 12:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that was the one when he was going on the inside. Right. And he didn't really get all the way next to him, but, I mean, it was pretty close.
• 13:02
  Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, he came on the radio and said, oh, where My wheel was right next to his wing mirror, which is kind of the reference point for these new racing guidelines. A bit ambitious. But the thing is, though, it's the first. It's the first lap, and you kind of got to let some of this go. The Russell one definitely was not a penalty.
• 13:24
  Speaker C: Yeah, that was very, very, very harsh. He went off by, like, a car's width or something and then came back on. That was insane.
• 13:31
  Speaker D: But he also didn't actually gain an advantage because he was battling with Hajar. And then when he came back on track, he was level with Piastri, wasn't It.
• 13:44
  Speaker A: Yes, yes.
• 13:45
  Speaker D: So it's like
• 13:45
  Speaker A: he,
• 13:46
  Speaker D: he lost ground. How can they say that that's gaining an advantage?
• 13:51
  Speaker C: They're going to say that he would have lost more probably, I guess. But yeah, it was, it was terrible. And after that, that put him behind because then he had. He served that penalty on his pit stop. Right. And.
• 14:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
• 14:06
  Speaker C: That dropped him behind Oscar, I guess. And he was just stuck there for like 30 laps or something. Yeah,
• 14:15
  Speaker D: yeah,
• 14:16
  Speaker A: it was. But I mean, a pretty awful race altogether for McLaren. It looked for a hot second, like Lando might be able to get on the podium, but once those two stoppers took their second stop, they caught up fairly quickly. And he just dropped down to Oscar, Right?
• 14:35
  Speaker D: Yeah. It's just. I don't know what's going on with McLaren at the moment. It's. They're just not getting it together. It just feels like they're making some errors or they're just not getting this set up. Right. They're just not where they need to be right now.
• 14:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they're just kind of non existent. They're not even talking about him much. And whenever you see Lando, like spoken to, he's like, okay with it. It seems like they're just accepting of the championship last year and we're moving on.
• 15:03
  Speaker C: Yeah,
• 15:04
  Speaker D: yeah. I mean, he got a couple of races and, you know, it might be track specific. You know, this type of track maybe doesn't suit them or this type of surface doesn't suit them. You know, people were talking about it being bumpy. Maybe they needed to race the ride height accordingly. Or maybe it's just a low grip surface. Maybe once we get to Qatar, which is a lot more sort of fast and flowing, similar to maybe a Zandvoort or Hungary, which obviously were good races for them, maybe they can come back into it a little bit and get a nice result at the end of the season if we actually go there. I'm still not convinced we will. I think that maybe they'll just call it off after the championship is settled because they don't want to call it off now because it'll, you know, like we've talked about the last few weeks, decide the championship on a, on a Tuesday or something.
• 16:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker D: So. Yeah, but if they do, then maybe that's going to be a better circuit for them. We'll see.
• 16:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, Martin, do you take this as a win for the Ferrari guys? This race, I mean.
• 16:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, Nick said he thought the race was a little boring. I mean, I Guess it was. But towards the end it was excited. I mean Kimmy kind of had it in the bag but Ferraris were making a charge towards the end there, you know, grabbing those places back from Verstappen and you know Norris, which was awesome. Some, some good overtakes there. And of course the beginning of the race is always stuff going on, right? There's people
• 16:46
  Speaker D: and, but for the safe, the virtual safety car for Botas pulling over, Lewis would have got the podium, Lewis would have got Max, he was only a second behind at that point with what, five second, four, five laps left?
• 16:57
  Speaker C: Yeah,
• 16:58
  Speaker A: yeah,
• 16:58
  Speaker D: and he, he'd have probably got it. The, the time it took them to get Bottas's car though was kind of annoying. Like they came in, the, the, the marshals came out, they had the virtual safety car, the marshals came out but they couldn't get it into neutral. You could see them trying to push it off and the wheels wouldn't turn so they had to go get, I mean the lift machine, I don't know what they call it, JCV type thing was right there, but I don't think they could get it into a position where they could lift the car out from behind without actually entering the track, which would have warranted the full safety car. So it had to back out and then try and pick it up from the side. But then you saw, it was hilarious. They lifted the car up about sort of four feet in the air. It's just like hovering there. And then they cut the VSC off and go back. Green flag racing. While the car's like not, not even over the barrier, it's still like just kind of hovering there in the air but it's like no one can crash into it because the cars are only about 3ft off the ground.
• 18:00
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I absolutely do think that it was a great race for Ferrari. You know, I was hoping for more and this just seems to be where they are. It's like whoever comes in to win the race, whether it's Verstappen or Lando's won one recently or the Mercedes and then Ferrari is just hanging around in second, they can't. Or third, they just can't get into that, winning, that winning position. They've only won, they won one race so far this year. Hamilton's won a race, right?
• 18:30
  Speaker A: Yeah,
• 18:31
  Speaker D: Hamilton did. But did leclerc win Silverstone? No. Who won, who won in Silverstone?
• 18:40
  Speaker A: Man
• 18:41
  Speaker C: even remember,
• 18:42
  Speaker A: did Max win in Silverstone?
• 18:45
  Speaker D: No, because
• 18:46
  Speaker A: Max
• 18:46
  Speaker D: didn't win until Malaysia.
• 18:48
  Speaker A: That's right. It Must have been Kimmy
• 18:52
  Speaker C: leclerc won in Silverstone. You're right.
• 18:54
  Speaker D: Okay.
• 18:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:55
  Speaker C: They're from Russell and Hamilton. So. Yeah,
• 18:58
  Speaker D: because it seems like Ferrari have the car that is easiest to get into the window, but it's not got the peak performance of the others and they, they pick up that. They've picked up their wins in. When Mercedes couldn't quite get their car right and Red Bull couldn't quite get their car right and McLaren couldn't quite get their car right. They're there to pick up the pieces. But one of those three is always kind of got it figured out in time for the Grand Prix. Except for on those two occasions.
• 19:29
  Speaker C: Yeah,
• 19:30
  Speaker D: Right. And then the Ferrari car has always been sort of second best. So it's been, you know, as. As is, you know, Lewis is second. No, he's now. He's now back to third a point or so behind Russell
• 19:44
  Speaker C: now. Yeah,
• 19:45
  Speaker D: yeah. So. And that's. And, and so there you have it, right. They've been the second best all year, just picking up the points. But normally that's been a podium here, podium there.
• 19:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Just one win each for Hamilton and leclerc West. Everybody else has multiple wins that's won a race.
• 20:01
  Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Let's
• 20:09
  Speaker C: see. Friend. Our friend Lance Stroll finished the race, didn't DNF this time.
• 20:14
  Speaker A: Yay. There is much rejoicing. Nice
• 20:22
  Speaker D: Monty Python reference there, my friend.
• 20:24
  Speaker A: Yes, there we go. And Lawson and Pierre getting points again. I mean, they seem to be like the two most consistent guys at the. The back of, you know, the point scorers to. To be up there and when it's not them, it's their teammates, but it's more often these two guys, which are the senior guys in their team, so to speak.
• 20:45
  Speaker D: Yeah, but. But Lawson still hasn't been confirmed for next year. It's like, give the guy his contract. He's. He's done a great job. He had
• 20:52
  Speaker A: a best
• 20:53
  Speaker D: of the rest
• 20:53
  Speaker A: this weekend. I don't know if you saw that.
• 20:56
  Speaker D: I did not see that.
• 20:58
  Speaker A: He, like sang in a. They had like Lawson and friends singing at the race, like a concert with all those little like groupie F1 fans. Like the young girls were all there in their team caps, like swooning over Liam Lawson and his friends singing acoustic guitar. You know, it was, you know, it was actually pretty cool.
• 21:19
  Speaker D: Was it on like the main stage or is it just like where they do the driver interviews type thing?
• 21:24
  Speaker A: I guess it was probably where they did the driver interviews, but there were like, six guys up there with them, and they did like a. They covered it for Sky Sports. So, you know, it was pretty cool.
• 21:35
  Speaker D: Yeah, but he's. But, you know, he's. But, you know, back to the point of the. The podcast, he's done a great job this year. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously, he went into the senior team and did well. He picked up some probably additional points that he wouldn't have in racing balls. But still, he's a good chunk of points ahead of everyone else outside of the top four teams. He's, you know, they couldn't have asked for more from him, so they. They should sign him for next year. It's just to. To not at this stage would be a massive disservice to him because there's nowhere else to go.
• 22:13
  Speaker A: He deserves it. Like you said. I mean, he's 30 points. 30 plus points ahead of Pierre in. In 10th place.
• 22:24
  Speaker D: Yeah. And obviously Pierre, another former Red Bull driver who, you know, as with Alex, gets cut from the program, but finds a solid home somewhere else because they are a very, very good driver, despite what Fernando Alonso says.
• 22:40
  Speaker A: Yeah. What did he. I saw that he said something. What did he say specifically?
• 22:45
  Speaker D: I don't know the exact quote, but it was basically, we need to get a better car because we can't be battling with the drivers back here because they're all shit. So. So. But that was because he'd had a bit of a tangle with Alex Albon. But in reality, yeah, Alex was making the move up the inside and it was a little ambitious. You have. I have to, you know, I have to say. But then ocon, I think, was the other car that was in it, and it was three into one. And, yeah, they came together. So, I mean, they're all decent drivers. I mean, Ocon beat Max Verstappen in Formula Renault, Right. And he's had a decent career. Obviously, it's coming to an end, but Alex is a good driver. So these are still 21 of the 22 best drivers in the world,
• 23:37
  Speaker A: you
• 23:38
  Speaker D: know, and Lance Stroll.
• 23:44
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 23:45
  Speaker D: We need to stop picking on Lance. People start picking up. He needs to
• 23:49
  Speaker A: get out of the sport. It's a joke. It's a total joke.
• 23:53
  Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, when you think about the driver market and it's like what seats there are out there and what drivers there are. It always comes down to the fact that, granted, Aston Martin have been a disaster this year, but I don't see them being a disaster for, like, two years from now. Next year might be painful, too, but They've got to, you know, with their budget, with their expertise and the people that they've hired. Smart people from across the grid, not just Adrian Newey. Directionally, they should be heading forward up the grid by the time Honda figure the engine out. Right?
• 24:30
  Speaker A: I mean, by that metric, then the Cowboys should be winning every single super bowl and the Yankees should be winning every single World Series. You know, like there's. There comes. There comes a time when there's this guy who owns that team who is so. I don't know. Big. Spirited is the nicest way I can say it. It doesn't work that way.
• 24:52
  Speaker D: But the Cowboys is a terrible analogy. But
• 24:55
  Speaker A: why?
• 24:56
  Speaker D: Because Jerry Jones really doesn't know what he's doing and he thinks
• 25:01
  Speaker A: Strohl does. I mean, Lawrence Stroll does. Lawrence
• 25:03
  Speaker D: Stroll is the. But it. But I do agree. It's kind of. You do get Jerry Jones type vibes from Lawrence Stroll. It's like he's constantly tinkering with it rather than just letting the people run the team. Hopefully. Well, let's just say hopefully it does get turned around. Honda, hopefully will create a better engine. Hopefully not by 2030 when the new regs come out, because then Fernando won't be there to take advantage. But as long. The point of all of this is that there are so many better drivers out there than. Than the Canadian son of the owner. Right. We stopped mentioning by name because people think we're picking on him again. Right. Liam Lawson, for example. Right. If a year from now, say they give him another year contract and then they've got Solov who say he wins F2 this year and they want to put him in the seat, maybe not this coming year. Give him a year as the reserve driver and then put him in. Lawson's probably going to be the guy to move on because they love Arvid. Right? So where's he going to go? George, for example. George has another disappointing season next year. I don't know if he's in a contract year or what, but he could be looking for a new home for the 28 season. All of these guys better than Lance Stroll. So come on, Lawrence, give up on the idea of your son being the world champion and just get out there and try and get the best two drivers you can in your team.
• 26:40
  Speaker A: He can't seriously think his son is going to win the world championship, though, right? He's just.
• 26:44
  Speaker D: Well, that's what this has all been for.
• 26:49
  Speaker C: That's the ultimate goal. If they can get the car. Get the car. Right?
• 26:54
  Speaker A: So that's why he wants a world champion next to him. He thinks he'll just gain it by osmosis. By being next to a world champion.
• 27:03
  Speaker D: Well, by having someone who is very experienced to help set up the car to get them into a position where they've got the right car. And then they cut bait with the experienced guy, put someone terrible in next to Lance and Lance ride it into the sunset of glory.
• 27:24
  Speaker C: They need a brawn F1 double diffuser type situation to materialize in their lap or something and just come out with a car that's a second a lap quicker than everybody else through some jiggery pokery
• 27:37
  Speaker A: and they could bring Latifi back
• 27:39
  Speaker C: and
• 27:40
  Speaker A: put him in the seat next to him.
• 27:42
  Speaker C: The Latifi Stroll Dream team won two in the championship.
• 27:48
  Speaker A: Were they teammates at Williams? No. Or was he just with George?
• 27:54
  Speaker D: That's a good question actually. Cause they were both coming through at the same time because Lance. So there was the famous Winter Trophy series which Will Buxton participated in, but it was actually, he was only there for the race as a journalist out of interest to kind of give it media coverage. But Max Verstappen was in it, Latifi was in it and Lance Stroll was in it. It was all bankrolled by Lawrence Stroll as a way to get visibility, get, you know, get Lance in another car, get some visibility onto him and all that kind of stuff. And Latifi actually won that, I think. So Max Latifi and Lance Stroll were all coming through at the same time.
• 28:38
  Speaker A: That's crazy.
• 28:39
  Speaker D: And so the question is, had Lance already moved to Force India after Lawrence had bought the, you know, the racing point thing together by the time Latifi landed at Williams? I don't know, That'd be 2020 or 20, 2019.
• 29:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, Latifi and Stroll, good old Google, you know.
• 29:14
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: Teammates. No. So I guess he had already left at that point because. Was
• 29:25
  Speaker D: it still Felipe
• 29:26
  Speaker A: Massa? Yeah. Yes.
• 29:30
  Speaker D: Massa was
• 29:31
  Speaker A: like his last season after
• 29:32
  Speaker D: Lance's. Yeah,
• 29:33
  Speaker A: I guess Lance took over when Botas left
• 29:35
  Speaker D: and Botas left. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:37
  Speaker A: yeah. Anyway,
• 29:42
  Speaker D: speaking of Botas, anything else happening further down the grid?
• 29:46
  Speaker A: Did he get the contract? Well, no, no. Sergio got a contract.
• 29:49
  Speaker C: Yeah. Perez is going to be there through 2029. So multi year contract for Perez, who's going to drive in his 300th Grand Prix in Mexico this weekend.
• 30:00
  Speaker A: Wow, that's cool.
• 30:02
  Speaker C: That's pretty cool. I mean there's still lots of development to be done at Cadillac. I mean they're just on the, on the track but not doing anything. Will they get significantly better next year?
• 30:14
  Speaker D: I don't, I don't know,
• 30:15
  Speaker C: probably not but,
• 30:17
  Speaker D: but I think Bottas does have a contract for next year but all the rumors are at the moment that her to might even though he's been struggling in F2, they might just give him the shot because Bottas has kind of been quite a long way behind Checo during the course of the season despite the them being level on points. So I think they're kind of thinking about well do we want to put Carlton in there? And Bottas has kind of seen, you know, had his day so but as of things right now Bottas I think is still the driver for next year and we'll see what happens.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, well I think that's unfortunately pretty much it from the race and I guess that just leaves us with coupes F1 Ah,
• 31:03
  Speaker C: coupes F1. So this round we have a new top race, single race, top score, Bunny Warren with 330 points.
• 31:15
  Speaker A: Dang.
• 31:16
  Speaker C: Incidentally they same same user Bunny Warren had 290 points in in Japan. So they have two of the top scores for the season. Every single, well they had every single top 10 driver in the top 10. Not all in the correct position but pretty much all of them in the right spots. But just pole position and fast lap. They got the wrong drivers but an amazing set of picks there for Bunny Warren. Other top scores, Tazo N or 293 along with Philo Fantita and then Andy W with 290. Is that a twin of yours?
• 31:59
  Speaker D: That could be my brother, I don't know.
• 32:02
  Speaker C: Does he ever change his picks? Along with my dad McNags again back on the front page. 200. Very nice. So good to see some friendly names up there. Tablet ID up two spots to number one overall with Beaver, Terra, Matt D both dropping down one spot. Jason up four spots to seventh, back
• 32:27
  Speaker D: into the top 10. Nice
• 32:28
  Speaker C: making yourself known. My dad up up 16 spots to 18th. McNags Nick down seven to 40th and me up 19 to 77th. So I was playing around at the top early doors but not anymore. But Jason, you got just a few races to go so how many races do we actually think there's going to be left in the season? We got
• 32:54
  Speaker A: two right?
• 32:55
  Speaker C: We got
• 32:56
  Speaker A: Vegas and Brazil and Mexico. Three
• 32:58
  Speaker C: Mexico, Vegas,
• 32:59
  Speaker D: Brazil,
• 32:59
  Speaker C: Brazil, Vegas. The weekend before Thanksgiving I think.
• 33:06
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 33:07
  Speaker C: And then yeah, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia are all just going to be lost to the cause we assume.
• 33:16
  Speaker A: We'll see. WWE has an event In Saudi Arabia next weekend.
• 33:22
  Speaker C: Right.
• 33:22
  Speaker A: If. If they go on, who knows? But.
• 33:25
  Speaker C: Who knows? But I don't know. I
• 33:28
  Speaker A: think Nick's right. If. If the championship sealed, why risk it?
• 33:32
  Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and there was talk of a final round at Imola, but that seems to have gone very quiet. I don't know whether that's because they think that they are going to have something in Abu Dhabi, but I don't know,
• 33:49
  Speaker A: what is the driver's championship look like? Because I feel like that has lots of money stakes and I mean, the Constructors Championship.
• 33:58
  Speaker D: The Constructors, yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker C: I mean, Mercedes have it in the bag. They're 607 Ferrari, 474. Red Bull and McLaren tied, 355, amazingly.
• 34:14
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 34:15
  Speaker C: So, yeah, there's definitely something to play for there. And like you said, there is money at stake. So whichever team is behind probably wants an extra race to try and get ahead. At the moment, you've got to think that McLaren and Red Bull tied on 355. But Red Bull, are they getting more points again? It's hard to judge, isn't it? Because Verstappen is doing well, but Hajar doesn't pick up as many points in between Lando and Piastri. They kind of work better as a team getting points, so.
• 34:46
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, Hajar got ahead of Piastri in this race, so.
• 34:51
  Speaker C: So maybe Red Bull are the team that's heading up, up the table and McLaren are just trying to hang on. So,
• 34:56
  Speaker A: yeah,
• 34:57
  Speaker C: it's prop that that's the only spot where there really is everything else pretty
• 35:02
  Speaker A: sealed. Yeah.
• 35:03
  Speaker C: Unless someone, some team lower down, wins a race or does something crazy. Right,
• 35:08
  Speaker A: right.
• 35:09
  Speaker C: Garners himself 25 points.
• 35:11
  Speaker A: Right. Well,
• 35:14
  Speaker C: I
• 35:14
  Speaker A: think that's pretty much it. Anything else, guys think we missed?
• 35:17
  Speaker C: No, we're just back at it again next week for Mexico when I guess we'll be talking about Kimmy and all of his. Will he be the youngest ever World Champion?
• 35:26
  Speaker A: Oh, right. Yeah. By
• 35:28
  Speaker D: three years.
• 35:29
  Speaker A: All of his things that he's accomplished. He is now the youngest ever race leader, the youngest ever pole sitter, the youngest championship leader, the youngest Grand Slam winner, and the youngest fastest lap. And he will be the youngest champion.
• 35:45
  Speaker C: There you go. It's gonna be. Yeah.
• 35:47
  Speaker D: Sebastian Vettel, I think, is still the youngest at 23.
• 35:53
  Speaker C: Wow. It's not even close, is it?
• 35:55
  Speaker A: No.
• 35:57
  Speaker C: Amazing.
• 35:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. Seems it'll be tough to beat. Thanks for listening to the undercuts review of the 2026 US Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time for our review of the 2026 Mexico Grand
• 36:20
  Speaker E: Prix. We'll
• 36:21
  Speaker A: see.