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Lando Norris Takes F1 Championship Lead with DOMINATING Mexico Win
Lando Norris Takes F1 Championship Lead with DOMINATING Mexico Win
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About this episode
Lando Norris takes the F1 championship lead with a dominant win in Mexico, overturning Oscar Piastri's earlier advantage. The hosts discuss the unique atmosphere of the Mexico GP, McLaren's internal dynamics, and how track conditions favor Norris's driving style. They also analyze the controversial virtual safety car deployment, the challenges Piastri faces with confidence in the car, and Max Verstappen's ongoing threat. Rookie standout Oliver Bearman’s impressive performance for Haas is highlighted, along with lighthearted moments involving George Russell and Mercedes teammates. The episode blends race analysis with insights into team politics and fan reactions.
Topics:
lando norris championship lead
mexico grand prix atmosphere
mclaren team dynamics
oscar piastri performance
virtual safety car controversy
max verstappen title chances
oliver bearman rookie performance
race strategy and tire management
fan reactions and booing
driver radio communications
Welcome back to Unlapped! ESPN's Nicole Briscoe, Nate Saunders, and Laurence Edmondson recap all the action from the Mexican Grand Prix. A dominant drive saw McLaren's Lando Norris take the championship lead by a point, but should he be the title favorite? Is Oscar Piastri starting to feel the pressure with only 4 races left in the season? Plus, is Red Bull's Max Verstappen still a factor in this championship?
00:00 - Intro and Welcome In
02:22 - Lando Norris dominates in Mexico
11:25 - Lando embracing Villain role?
15:25 - Pressure mounting for Oscar Piastri?
20:18 - What was the FIA doing? VSC Last Lap?
31:42 - Max Verstappen still a factor in the championship?
35:33 - Red Bull in a better spot for title push than McLaren?
37:55 - Haas and Ollie Bearman impress!
41:44 - George Russell goes undercover!
47:00 - Thanks for watching!
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Be the first to request an explanation below.
- Intro and Welcome In
- Lando Norris dominates in Mexico
- Lando embracing Villain role?
- Pressure mounting for Oscar Piastri?
- What was the FIA doing? VSC Last Lap?
- Max Verstappen still a factor in the championship?
- Red Bull in a better spot for title push than McLaren?
- Haas and Ollie Bearman impress!
- George Russell goes undercover!
- Thanks for watching!
Select text to request an explanation
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Nate's here.
Lawrence is here.
I'm back.
I'm coming off of an 18-inning World Series game.
I am not firing on all cylinders.
It feels like, I feel like I'm in college again.
The worst.
I see times now as an adult that I didn't see when I was in my 20s.
Like, I got home after four o'clock in the morning.
What is that?
Yeah, I actually had a connecting flight through Dallas.
And when I first looked at it, I thought, I was perfectly timed to watch the World
Series game because we've been following it at the Mexico Grand Prix as well.
And then, yeah, and then my flight was leaving.
I was like, can't leave the screen.
I can't leave the screen.
But if I'd stayed there, I would have missed a flight by about two hours.
It was that long.
So, yeah.
I mean, great entertainment, but I only woke up to the result this morning when
I landed in London.
A seven-hour, a seven-hour game.
We could have put in like several F1 races in that time.
Anyway, it's good to see you guys.
How was, how was Mexico?
It was fantastic.
I think there's not many races that can follow up on Austin because, as we all know
and love, Austin is, is pretty incredible.
But, yeah, Mexico can do it.
It's got just this whole vibe, this whole identity of its own, mainly brought
by the fans.
That has to be said.
But also the, the circuit, not great for racing, but it has this kind
of like old-school charm and the, well, the baseball stadium that they've
converted into the final sector of the lap is pretty special as well.
It's not many places in the world.
It's great because you get the feedback from the crowds.
So the crowds cheer, the crowds boo.
We'll talk about that later.
But, yeah, it really is an atmosphere unlike anywhere else in F1.
I like the fact that, you know, we come off of the, the, the second to last
US race and we always talk about it, how like all three of the US races sort
of have their own vibe, their own feel, their own identity.
And you leave Austin where it's just, you know, stuffed bulls and long
horns and everything.
And you go to Mexico and Mexico is the exact same thing in terms
of identity and vibe.
Obviously there was also some drama in the championship.
Lando Norris, once again, back out front.
It's been a weird run for Oscar Piazza because I feel like there was a
moment in time where it was like bet against him at your own risk.
And like all of a sudden there has just been this like shift where
suddenly you can't take your eyes off of, dare I say, the growing
villain that is Lando Norris?
Like what is your biggest takeaway from the championship fight after
watching what we saw in Mexico?
Yeah, I think I was trying to think back to our post-Sandvault show in September
and we were saying that exact thing.
I listened to the beginning of it.
We were saying, you know, it's Piazzari's title to lose at this point.
And it is remarkable how it's turned around so quickly.
I mean, if you'd said then that Norris would be back in, in the
lead of the championship by this point, you would have probably assumed
that Piazzari would have had a car failure or something like that at some point.
You would have assumed for a swing that big, obviously crashed out in Baku.
But yeah, it's been a remarkable turnaround.
And I think that what is really remarkable about this now is that it has
really turned the narrative of the whole season around those two McLaren
drivers completely 180 all year.
We were saying, you know, Norris hasn't really risen to the occasion
of being title favourite.
You know, he hasn't really stepped up to that to that mark
that we kind of wanted to see from him, you know, to believe he was champion.
And all year right up until Zanvour, when he won there, Piazzari kind of looked
like a mini Verstappen, you know, very calm, collected, robotic, you know,
just just cold-blooded.
And then whatever happened after that, I mean, Lando Norris said
he had nothing to lose from Zanvour.
And maybe that is what he needed just to change the mindset a little bit.
But they've looked like completely different drivers since that point.
Obviously, it's been muddied by a lot of weird McLaren internal things as well.
But you've got to say that was probably Lando's best
drive in Formula One.
I can't, you know, he was great in Monaco this year, if you remember that as well.
That was that.
Yeah, that was the Lando Norris that we all came into the season
saying if he can be like that, he's going to be world champion.
And yeah, I mean, what a time to turn it around.
Four races left and he's back in the league.
It was April 20th
that Piazzari took the lead off of him in the first place.
And at the time then it was it felt like Norris's season
was falling apart a little bit.
And Piazzari was the guy who was going to kind of steal the rug
from under his feet. So Norris back on on top.
I'm now fascinated to see with all of that in mind
how Norris steals with the guy being back in front.
You know, he's been chasing for a little bit.
Now the pressure is back on him. He's got the lead.
You know, I know it's effectively a reset championship at this point.
One point is is, you know, is barely anything in Formula One.
Right. So now it's fascinating.
But yeah, I just think it's so interesting how the two things have
flipped around. And I think Lando Norris deserves his dues for that,
because we're very hard on him earlier in the year for the way he drove at certain points.
I think certainly over the last two or three races, he's been he's been spectacular.
Yeah. And I think what is particularly impressive for Norris is that
he's just be able to build this momentum over the last few races.
Third in Singapore, second in the US, win in Mexico.
And until that win in Mexico, you still had your doubts because, you know,
going into the weekend, he was 14 points behind Piazzari.
The Stappen was closing rapidly on both of them.
It was quite hard to put together an argument that Norris was really,
you know, anything but the third favourite for this this title.
But he's just completely upended that narrative in Mexico
with that victory and the size of that victory.
Like they said, you know, we've seen that before from Lando,
where he goes and just absolutely dominates a race weekend.
It's something he's done a few times over the last couple of years,
thinking back to Singapore last year, Zandvoort last year.
But this was very good.
But the other interesting thing which came out of Sunday night
was listening to Andrea Stella, the team principal at McLaren,
and saying, why, you know, why was Norris so good here
and why is Piazzari struggling so much?
And he puts it down to circuits with low group conditions.
So Mexico is very much one of those because the tyres tend to overheat.
There's not much downforce because the air is so thin up at two thousand two
and forty metres.
And when the car is sliding around, moving on top of the surface of the track
and just kind of a bit of a handful, Norris is able to take a few risks
with it, push it to the limit, get the maximum from the car.
If Oscar doesn't have it all underneath him, he's a little bit more cautious
of some things he doesn't want to do with the car, certain corner entries
he won't take because he's worried about what will happen on the exit.
And like Nate said, you know, back to Saudi Arabian Grand Prix,
it was the other way around.
The car was really well planted, loads of grip.
And it was Lando that didn't know whether to trust it or not,
wasn't quite able to maximise it and Oscar could.
So even though Lando has had this run of form and Piazzari has really struggled,
as the circuit types change, which they will over the next four races,
there'll be some that go both ways.
We could see that fight still flip and go back.
So it's not the Lando's on his way to the championship
and we'll crown him already at all.
It's still super close and it's not the Piazzari's out of the championship.
And then, of course, there's Max, who I think we've all agreed,
we never rule out.
I think the thing that amazed me the most was I forget at what point
maybe it was after the sprint race.
I caught up with Piazzari in the pen and he had said something
that I had literally heard Lando say earlier in the season,
how he was lacking the confidence in the car
because he couldn't feel it under him.
And that is literally something that we had heard Lando say earlier
and we'd heard Andre Estella say it
and we'd heard Zach Brown say it about Lando,
but as to why there was such a big difference.
So I get that it happens.
I get that every driver has a different style.
I get all of that, but it's just happening at a time
when going into the weekend in Austin,
when the McLaren team came out
and they made things as muddy as clear as mud
when they were like Piazzari principles, whatever.
Like they were talking about repercussions for Lando
and they made this situation where on Thursday,
when we were doing this podcast
and Nate was sitting on a bull,
we were looking at each other
and saying there are so many things right now
that seem to favor Oscar even internally
and then over the course of a couple of days,
it started to switch on its head in Austin
and then it completely changed on its head in Mexico
where there are parts of this to me
that don't just feel like it's on track stuff,
it actually feels surprisingly like internally,
it's also gone by way of Lando.
And like 10 days ago, we wouldn't have said that.
10 days ago, we were doubting Lando
because of the repercussions.
Yeah, that was curious, wasn't it?
Go on, go on, I'm sorry.
I would say McLaren actually turned,
got rid of those repercussions entirely
off the back of what happened in Austin.
Right.
And I think there was a sense of relief from both drivers,
well, maybe not so much Oscar,
but certainly from Lando, but the team itself as well,
that rather than having this thing hanging over them
through the end of the year,
that they could basically just say, okay,
well, what happened in the Austin sprint race
on the first lap kind of means that it's equal.
They decided that Oscar,
while it wasn't a wild move, what he was trying,
it was his aggression to try and get back underneath Norris
that led to the collision that then led to
both McLaren's being taken out.
So I feel like they've reset that.
And I mean, both sides are always gonna look
at every decision made from the team,
where it's 50-50,
and think that it didn't go towards them.
There's always gonna be these situations
where a driver feels slightly slighted by it.
And certainly the fan base and the Twittersphere
and all that kind of stuff will look at stuff
and have one view or another.
But I stand by that.
I do think that McLaren are doing a good job
at trying to balance it as much as possible.
A lot of people will now be looking back to Monza
and saying that the six-point swing
that went to Lando because they are some swap positions
is the reason that he's now one point ahead.
Yeah, you could argue that,
but then you could also pick through
pretty much every round of the season
and find little things that went one way or the other.
And okay, they might not have all come directly from the team,
but you still find reasons why
Oscar's drop points, Lando's drop points, say.
But it is that tight.
And that's why we have all these conspiracy theories
after every race and the booing in Mexico
because people do get thoroughly invested in this
and they look at all the little things going on.
Well, before we go too far away
from the booing in Mexico,
obviously the booze, they can be a bit more nuanced
than just what's on the top, what's just presented.
So we'll just leave it there at that.
But for a long time, Lando has sort of been like,
I'm just gonna be me, I'm not gonna sort of give up myself
to be anyone different on the track.
And he sort of puts off like this nice guy persona.
There is a part of him now
that does come across a little bit
like he's embracing the villain role.
Like, are you buying it, Nate?
Are you not?
Or is it just like circumstantial?
And that's just sort of the image
that we're getting of him right now
that it's not really, like he's not really villainous.
I don't know about, yeah, the villain thing with Lando
doesn't massively kind of compute with me.
But I think what he's doing, which is pretty good
is he's just letting it kind of,
you know, he's just brushing it off.
I mean, laughing at the booing,
that's really all you can do in that situation.
We were talking about this,
we have a group chat with some journalists
and we obviously covered the booing
because it became a story.
But I've never shared the outrage
that a lot of journalists have when somebody gets booed.
I think for people to boo or cheer a driver,
it shows they care.
The worst reaction you could have
is if Lando and Norris went into the lead of the championship
and there was silence, there was nothing.
Because it would suggest,
well, no one really connects with this guy either way.
The fact that those fans felt,
whether or not the reasons for them booing
are legitimate or not,
I think that this, you know,
F1 fans love these conspiracy theories
about one team favoring another.
You know, I agree with what Lawrence said there.
They've dropped a lot of points at different points.
What I would say is the difference is
Monza is the only place where McLaren actively intervened
and things clearly on track were changed outside of racing.
But McLaren explained themselves very well in that circumstance
and then it's down to whether fans believe them or not.
I actually think Lando should fully embrace it.
You know, I think if that's how fans
are gonna react to it, who cares?
I mean, look at Max.
Max Verstappen's a great example.
He's never cared what people think about him.
And if Lando Norris is gonna get booed
and win the championship
or if he's gonna, there's gonna be silence
and he doesn't win the championship,
I'd rather be booed.
You know, it doesn't ultimately matter.
He knows, he knows in his heart
how good he is as a racing driver.
He knows how he's viewed inside the team.
And I think that, you know,
the booing as well is always,
you're gonna get it in different places, right?
You know, I think that there is still
a contingent of Red Bull fans in Mexico
just because of Perez.
Even though they got rid of him,
I think they still have a great deal of love for Max,
you know, as Perez's old teammate.
So there's part of that as well.
And it is just kind of, you know,
you go to an event sometimes and you know,
somebody wins, you didn't wanna win.
You're like, I'm gonna make some noise.
I spent good money on this ticket to see this
and the guy I wanted to win didn't win the race.
So I'm gonna make a noise, I'm gonna boo.
So I don't think it's always,
especially I think in the British media,
it always becomes this big thing about,
oh, this guy got booed and stuff like that.
I don't really see an issue with it.
And you know, it's happened before.
I remember Rosberg getting booed.
You know, Lewis has been booed at different points.
Like, it depends where you go, right?
So Philando himself, I mean,
the fact that he was just sat there laughing about it
in that stadium section as it was happening,
I actually was like, fair play,
that's exactly how you respond to it
because the worst thing than seeing your guy
who you didn't wanna win, win the race,
is then if you boo him and he laughs at you booing him,
because it's like a double hit to you,
like, oh, actually, also, he's not reacted angrily.
He's not got upset with it.
He actually just doesn't care.
So I thought it was a really smart way of playing it off
and with Landon Orris as well,
I mean, you know, he can be a hard character
to read, Landon, because sometimes he opens up
very well on mental health and stuff like this.
I think a lot of people see, you know,
I don't know, people have different opinions
of how he is.
Piastri, I think it's pretty much,
you know what Piastri is, don't you?
He's very, there's not really much mystery about who he is,
but Landon, especially because he's so open
with his personality as well,
I think people, he's a real Marmite figure.
I don't know if Marmite is a thing in the U.S. to cold,
I should really know that, but it's like, it's like,
love it.
It's pretty horrible tasting.
Yeah, so people either love it or they absolutely hate it.
There's no middle ground with Landon.
And I think that that's the kind of guy he is.
And I think Max Verstappen was the same as that.
And I don't have an issue with it at all.
And I think he's dealt with it very well.
I also think the booing thing, like when people are like,
oh, clutch my pearls, like no, uh-uh.
Like it's, it's, you're not gonna have passionate fans
who love you, who then also on the other side,
dislike you.
Do you actually eat Marmite?
No, I hate it.
I hate Marmite.
That's not a comment on Landon Norris, by the way,
just to clarify, but Marmite, I don't like.
So Ryan, my husband, Australian,
so we have Vegemite in the house.
And it's equally distasteful.
It's equally raw.
It's equal trash, like the worst.
Sorry, completely sidetracked
because it's just awful.
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The idea now that the pressure is on Oscar,
how much are you buying that's given?
I guess here's my perspective.
It's not just that the championship lead has changed hands
because it's one skinny little point.
It's not an insurmountable situation.
It's just that this was the guy not that long ago
we were looking at him and saying,
like, this is his to lose, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's the fact that he hasn't had a good race.
When was his last good race?
So I look at race weekend, I just look at the trend
and it just feels like this is a bad time
to be trending in the wrong direction.
There are only four races and a sprint left.
This is a bad time to be losing everything that you had
that made you the guy.
Yeah, I mean, the last good race was the Dutch Grand Prix
which is five races ago.
So that is quite concerning.
You could make a case for Singapore.
Actually, maybe he could have finished ahead of Lando,
had Lando not pulled that move,
he qualified ahead of Lando.
So the performance was there.
Actually, before the accident in qualifying,
the performance looked okay in Azerbaijan
compared to Lando at least.
So it's really the last two races where it's really gone.
I honestly don't think it's a pressure
because when we talk to him afterwards,
he doesn't seem like a driver who's under pressure.
He doesn't seem like someone who's
struggling with the pressure.
And it's not really been mistakes that have led to,
I mean, there was an Azerbaijan, no denying that.
But if you look at Mexico and the US,
it's not like there was real obvious mistakes
on a qualifying lap or something like that.
It's just that the performance hasn't been there.
And as I mentioned earlier, McLaren do believe
there's a reason for that.
And it's the confidence in the car
which I don't think is coming from pressure.
I think that's just coming from the difficulties
we're dealing with certain track surfaces,
certain places where the tyres are getting a bit hotter
than maybe they do elsewhere.
So I think that's what it is.
But he really does need that reset, doesn't he?
He needs to go to Brazil and there's the sprint race
and then the full Grand Prix.
And he needs to be ahead of Lando in both of those,
in my opinion, and ideally ahead of Max as well.
However, I am not actually sure that Brazil's gonna play
100% in his favour because it is a sprint race weekend.
You get that one practice session.
I think there's still a few things that Lando,
sorry, that Oscar would love to just play with on the car,
he used practice sessions to get more comfortable with.
And he said after qualifying actually,
and McLaren said this as well,
that he did kind of get a better understanding
all of a sudden.
And that's why his race pace actually in Mexico
wasn't bad at all.
It's just that he was in traffic a lot of time
and we know how difficult it is to overtake.
But if you look at what he was doing out there
and the lap times he was able to put in
when he briefly got bits of free air,
it wasn't bad, it wasn't like completely off pace.
So there's little kind of green shoots of recovery there
but I just think with four races to go,
the pressure of two of those being sprint races
not having the practice sessions,
he's gonna have to absolutely nail it
when he turns up in Brazil to just keep,
to regain the momentum really,
going into the final few races.
Yeah, 100%.
I think...
Nate wanted to say anything
so I didn't want to cut him off.
No, no, sorry.
The only thing I was gonna add was with Piastri,
I think you can look at it
as him choking it away a little bit,
but there is something to be said about since Zanvo,
he's almost been playing with house money
in terms of the championship.
You have a lead that big,
four races off the podium,
which Lando only had two consecutive races off the podium,
as bad as we were making out his season to be,
you look at Lando's results,
all year they've been pretty consistently
on the podium like Piastri,
for him to come through that whole thing
and now just be a level pegging situation with Norris.
I think it's actually,
obviously you'd rather be still 20 points ahead
right in the championship,
but he could have come out of this spell
20 points down on Norris
and still be searching for form.
The fact that he's got four races
and it's effectively a four race sprint now
to the championship,
knowing Piastri how we do,
and everyone you talked to McLaren say that,
to Lawrence's point there,
he doesn't really feel the pressure too well.
I don't see him having a big issue,
but I do agree.
I think he's gotta come out of Sao Paulo
with at least one of those races being ahead of Norris.
I mean, you start giving up seven points now
and that's,
which is obviously different between first and second.
That's really, really big
with the diminishing races coming up.
I do wanna head on sort of like,
you talked about passing was difficult,
which is per usual,
but there was a,
we thought we were gonna have a good run to the finish
until the virtual safety car came out.
And I don't wanna sit here and turn into this like,
let's rail against the FIA.
We need permanent stewards, blah, blah, blah.
But there were a few things that happened in the race
from really lap one to the final lap of the race
where you're wondering like, what is the FIA doing?
Like where is the consistency?
Let's just start with what happened at the very end
because in a lot of ways,
I feel like we were robbed of a really good battle
between Leclerc and Verstappen.
And it also could play out in the championship
because let's just live in a world
where Verstappen was able to get around Leclerc.
That's what three extra points in the championship
that he didn't get because he ran out of time.
So let's just start there.
When the Williams looped it and parked it on the side,
what was it about that situation
that required a virtual safety car, Lawrence?
Yeah, I mean, the other repercussion actually
that there could have been as well
was if Oscar got past Oliver Berman
and still be leading the championship.
Also that, I forgot about that.
Yes. By the by.
But yeah, the reason there was a VSC,
well, science they say spun the car was kind of,
he actually managed to get it in towards one
of the gaps in the barrier.
But if you look at the aerial footage of that,
there was kind of a rescue truck or something there.
So we couldn't get it fully into that gap in the barrier,
which meant the rear of the car was sticking out.
Now it's a very slow part of the track.
You so, I mean, science spun there,
but you so rarely see drivers make a mistake,
their spin certainly have a high speed accident.
So you think, well, you probably could have got away
with that to the end of the race
with just yellow flags, like just leave the car there,
have yellow flags in that sector,
still allow overtaking throughout the rest of the lap
when most of the overtaking zones are,
I think it's really only turn one and four,
where you can get it done.
So it shouldn't have really had an impact on it.
But then to be fair to the FIA,
the rear brakes on Carlos's car caught fire,
or certainly there was signs of smoke and fire on the car.
Now then you end up with a quite different situation
because if that car goes up in flames,
it's in the middle of a stadium section,
it's all quite tightly packed.
Obviously you don't want that,
plus you don't want cars going up in flames.
If you can help it anyway.
And so at that point they had to deploy marshals
to, with fire extinguishers to put out the flames.
And then you've got marshals essentially on a live track.
And even in the slow part of the track,
I mean, I spent a bit of time in that stadium section
during the practice sessions,
the cars still seem very quick
and they still seem very close.
And so if you have marshals outside of the barrier,
you have to have a VSC.
I mean, we've had so many bad,
well, we've had one very bad lesson from Formula One,
allowing cars to race while marshals are still on track.
And that came in Japan 2014.
So I think anyone who's questioning
whether there should have been a VSC,
well, if you've got marshals on the track,
you have to have a kind of a VSC if there's the field spread.
Now, I know what you're gonna say.
You're gonna say, well, let's go back to the start
of the race and the two marshals were on the track.
That was absolutely a mistake
and kind of thing that should not happen.
And the FIA are investigating that.
That seems to be more of a communication issue
between that marshall post
and what was going on around the rest of the track.
Lawson was away from the rest of the pack
because he had pitted early
and therefore he was the one car that came out
when the marshals were not expecting him to be there.
That's an example where perhaps you don't need a VSC
if you have cars on track.
So yeah, because if they're all clumped together,
you have enough time to get rid of debris
and stuff like that.
But what they'd overseen,
or certainly the marshall post they'd overseen
is that Lawson was gonna come out of the pits
and be a lone car at the back.
So that's exactly the reason why we do have VSCs
in these kind of situations.
And that's one that really needs to be looked into
and fully understood
and make sure that more safeguards are put in place.
The FIA have a lot, race control has a lot,
but more safeguards are put in place
so you don't have marshals that close to a live car
because it is scary.
Well, and that was the thing too.
Like Nate, you said this I think on Twitter slash X.
The whole thing earlier in the race with Liam Lawson
was not picked up on the feed that we saw here in the U.S.
So there was a part of me
that when the virtual safety car came out at the end,
that I was wondering how much of that
was based on what happened with Lawson.
Like how much of the FIA they were like operating
under like, well, we can't let that happen again.
So we just have to throw the virtual safety car.
Like the Lawson,
I'm still trying to figure out how that happens.
And is there any context at all other than like,
there was just a miscommunication between that post?
Like, do we have any additional information
as to why not one, but two were still out there?
Yeah, it seems to have been a bit of a miscommunication
because the FIA said that they had alerted them
and Lawrence, please correct me if I'm wrong on this.
So I'm just trying to rack my brain on the statement
we got from the FIA,
but Lawson was coming out of the pit lane.
So obviously there was a gap
where they could have in theory got out there.
And it is a tricky thing.
Sometimes you see them, you know, they dash out,
they've got a 30 second window and grab something.
But it does seem to have been, you know,
huge either misunderstanding
or just a breakdown in communication, you know, crucially.
And luckily that's the part of the track where Lawson,
you know, Lawson isn't screaming through that corner.
It's a pretty heavy braking zone.
But yeah, whenever you see that, it's pretty,
it's just horrifying stuff.
And just hearing Lawson's radio message on it
shows you for those guys how scary that is.
And I think sometimes the onboard
can actually you're like, oh, I just missed him.
You actually, sometimes we see these cars come
as a grid. There's a grid in the year
where we all go and stand on the grid in Zambor.
And you see the cars come around the final corner
and slowing down.
And a lot of the photographers and journalists
and team members stand there and watch them.
I've never liked doing that
because the speed they come at
is just unbelievable.
And I think all it takes is, you know,
one snap.
They just spin, yeah, one tiny moment.
I mean, Lawson could have got wide
through that corner or whatever.
So really terrifying stuff.
I think the FIA is looking into it.
And yeah, you know, I guess that's very easy to happen
in a race where there's so much going on.
But yeah, you really don't, you really don't want to see it.
And I think that the next race
are going to have to address what happened.
Just for clarity on that,
because I didn't really explain it very well
the first time around.
So the whole pack was going round
and there was debris on the track.
The FIA, knowing that there was debris on the track,
told that Marshall post to be ready
to go out on track and collect the debris
once all the cars had gone past.
Then Lawson pitted from the back of the pack.
So the Marshalls were already ready,
knowing that all the cars were going to come through.
Lawson pitted from the back of the pack.
And then obviously it was behind the rest of them.
So all the other cars went through.
The Marshalls at that post apparently were alerted
that Lawson would be coming later.
But that message clearly hadn't got through
to the two Marshalls who ran out on track.
So they saw all the cars go through.
They thought, here's our opportunity.
You know, we've got basically a lap
to go and get the debris and take it off the track.
But little did they know that the Lawson was coming through.
So it's that miscommunication there
where it seems like rest director did tell the Marshalls
not to go out because Lawson was still due to come around.
But that message hadn't got through
to those two actual Marshalls on the ground.
So it was that miscommunication
that needs to be looked into.
And I think that's something which we have seen before.
It's not completely randomism,
but it is so, so dangerous that that's why, you know,
that there'll be more precautions.
But if there's more precautions,
it might mean that we get more VSCs
like we had at the end of the race.
You know, I don't think you can look at the term one incident
on lap three and, you know, and be horrified and then say,
well, they shouldn't have had a VSC at the end of the race as well,
because it's essentially the same thing.
You know, there should have been more care taken on lap three.
There was lots of care taken at the end of the race.
If it ruins the race, you know, it's unfortunate,
but that is racing.
You know, that is part of what it's all about.
But I also think that is the part
where they need to have some transparency
because there wasn't a lot of explanation.
You guys got the explanation,
but it hasn't been a well-broadcast explanation
as for what happened.
And also the fact that the issue with Lawson,
the two marshals, because it sort of trickled out,
especially like here, the way that it trickled out,
the way that it did, it just led to,
it was one of those situations where it just led to like,
well, this is about clear as mud.
And whenever you have anything like that happen,
then you open the door for like,
we've talked about a million times with McLaren,
you open the door for conspiracy theories,
you open the door for questions,
if they just come out and said, this is what it was,
this is why it happened in a more broadcast way
to provide clarity, then maybe it wouldn't have seemed
the way that it did at the end of the race.
The difficulty that the sport always faces there
is the Formula One,
the kind of commercial rights organization
controls the broadcast, the FIA controls the running
of the race and the event,
and they're two separate entities.
So while the FIA I'm sure were somewhat embarrassed
by what happened with the Marshalls at Term One,
it wasn't their choice not to broadcast,
so it wasn't the FIA trying to cover it up.
Maybe F1 chose not to broadcast it,
and perhaps that's something
that you can put a question towards F1,
but it's just because you've got these two entities,
so I don't think it should be seen
as a conspiracy of the whole thing,
because you've got a race director who's,
I think usually based back in London,
you're calling the shots on literally what shots
are put out there, and then you've got a race director
sat in the race director's office at the circuit
making the decisions on when we have VSEs
and when Marshalls should be told to go
and when they shouldn't be told to go.
So I think you can look at all these things
and start saying, well, they were trying to cover it up
and then they couldn't cover it up,
but that's where it was.
And then also, I think there is an element
of the FIA has to fully understand
what did happen in that moment
before they put out a statement to the media.
So they were fairly quick, the FIA.
You know, we got it, I think it was within an hour
after the race of an explanation.
We already had a story saying,
we've Lawson's quote saying how dangerous this was.
And then shortly after we had published that,
we got the explanation from the FIA
that went into that story as well.
So I don't know, I mean like it clearly,
it wasn't handled the way it should be.
The first incident, I think the second incident
you can understand with the VSE at the end
why race control did that, but yeah,
they're trying to then turn that into a conspiracy theory
of their hiding stuff or their in its mismanagement.
It's like, no, there's humans making decisions
and actually the ones that are putting the pictures out
are different humans.
The ones that are making the decisions
around the race action and controlling the race.
And Max made a very good point
in the press conference afterwards,
which I thought kind of went under the radar a little bit.
You know, people were asking him,
was it outrageous the VSE was thrown at ruining your race?
And people might know, you know,
maybe he was referring to a certain race in particular,
he said, well, look, the safety cars helped me
at points in my career and it's also hurt me
at some points in my career.
There'll be people listening to this
who definitely agree with that being the case.
And that is the thing, you know,
the FIA doesn't owe us a good end to a race.
You know, if something needs to be thrown
for the safety aspect, they've got to do it.
It was a shame, the impact it had
because that last stint from Max, by the way,
was unbelievable.
I was just looking back at some of his times.
It was just superb.
But yeah, that's just the way it is.
So I was actually quite glad Max said that
because it was quite, you know,
it was very Max just like, yeah, you know,
something else and sometimes it doesn't.
And yeah, but yeah, a shame because it could have been,
you know, and seeing Charles and Max go will to will,
I always quite enjoy that.
I think there's always, you know,
it's always one of the ones Max has to work
a bit harder to get past as well.
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Max obviously didn't have the weekend that he had
in Austin where it was essentially perfect
and he made up a tremendous amount of ground
in the championship in the Austin weekend.
He still did close the gap.
I mean, I think we walked away from that thinking
like the big news was the fact that, you know,
Lando is leading the way now,
but Max still is closer.
That gap is smaller than it was.
How much confidence do you still have
in Max going forward given just the way
that the number of races left,
the number of point scoring opportunities left
and the gap that exists between first slash second
and third?
Well, it's the first sign since Monza really
where they brought a major upgrade to the car
that it doesn't work everywhere.
You know, there was, we started to think
and one of the reasons that we were all getting
behind this Max, you know, title charge was
because the car was just looking quicker
than the McLarens in every circumstance.
And we went to different types of circuits.
It's Singapore, very different from Austin,
very different from back and very different from Monza.
And, you know, and Max was looking
very, very quick in all conditions.
Then we got to Mexico and realized that there are
still weaknesses are still things that we don't understand.
But what was incredible was that Max still managed
to haul that car onto the podium
and very nearly into second place.
So I think that's why you cannot rule him out at all.
And in fact, why there's still a very good argument
as to why he might go and win this title
is because he just does things like that.
And I think a few things have to go his way now.
I would say Brazil is probably a circuit
that's gonna suit the McLarens more.
But we said that last year,
when Lando was closing in on Max,
and of course it,
I want to say, I'm sorry, I was gonna say
pistol down a rain, but it didn't.
Raincannon down a rain.
And Max went and won and, you know,
and basically just took the championship from that point.
I mean, not quite literally,
but certainly took any steam out of Lando Norris
coming back into it.
And so things like that could happen still.
And if Max takes a big chunk of points
out of the McLarens in Brazil,
it is absolutely game on because Vegas is a race
that I think is gonna suit the Red Bull
and then over the McLaren
and then Qatar probably back the other way
and maybe Abu Dhabi somewhere in the middle.
So, you know, if he can just keep chipping away,
but he has to keep doing it.
And he didn't quite get enough points
that he needed from Mexico,
but he did a really good job at damaged limitation.
And that's why I still think Max
is a contender for this title.
Especially when you look at the forecast as well
in Brazil, just looking at it now,
it's heavy rain over a week this week.
And then it looks like rain
on the horizon next week as well.
So, I mean, that's a place.
I'm not willing to bet on that yet.
No.
Thing is, I think, where Max is at as well.
And given the fact that now, you know,
the gloves are off type thing with the,
you know, piastria and Norris aren't fighting
with any restrictions or anything like that.
If they come together once, that's, you know,
that's a massive open door.
And McLaren can't step in and say, don't race now.
How are they gonna tell their two drivers?
Hey guys, there's four races left.
Can you just make sure you're careful
when you're racing each other?
I don't think that's gonna happen.
So, I think Max is very much still in it.
And he's actually, he's probably
in the most luxurious position of all of them.
You obviously wanna have the championship lead,
but just being able to be that wild card against two teammates,
I think he's, you know, I think he's in a great spot.
I mean, just the internal politics of having McLaren
needing to balance what they have to balance.
I mean, I thought it was funny too,
just in the race in Mexico,
they came on the radio at one point
and asked Lando for his fair interpretation
of which tire was better
so that they could tell the other side.
And at that point, I'm thinking to myself,
that's stupid.
Why, why even put them in that position?
Because that is unfair.
That's unfair to the guy who wants to win the championship
to have him help the other side of the garage.
So like, you know, Red Bull is in a better spot
in which they don't have to balance anything.
They can just be like, go, do your thing.
McLaren have done that, I think quite well though
in the fact that I think they've let it be known
to both drivers that it is counterproductive
in those moments to be selfish in terms of, you know,
if Lando says, I'm not telling you,
I'm not telling you what that is.
Yeah, but that's fine.
That's easy to say.
But that's easy to say, that's easy for it to be like,
that's what we're doing.
And it's easy to even know that in that moment
that that's counterproductive.
But we're reaching a point in the season
where again, there are four races to go and a sprint race.
It's a little more real now.
It's a little less like,
oh, in theory I could win the championship.
I think that there's a part of that
where it's like it's human nature
where you're like, no, I don't wanna help you.
And it would be weird if they were like,
let me just give you all the information.
Like that's not what a competitor wants to do.
Yeah.
I think that's what I mean.
Cool.
Yeah.
And I think, yeah, go.
I would say the other one that they really need to stamp out
is what led to the swap in Monza.
And I can't remember the exact race it was after that,
but there was another race where it must have been
Singapore I think where they asked the lead driver,
are you okay for your teammate who's directly behind you
to get the pit stop first?
And then the lead driver has a choice of yes or no.
And obviously in Monza,
that's what led to the problems
because they asked Lando, are you okay
if Oscar pits first to try and cover off Shao?
And Lando said, yes,
but as long as he doesn't get the undercut,
so as long as he doesn't get ahead of me
as a result of that.
And then of course, Oscar did get ahead of him
as a result of that.
So I just don't ask the question in the first place.
Just pit Lando first,
even if it's only by now,
the Constructors Championship won,
it kind of was by Monza anyway.
I mean, they were not going to lose it from that point,
but just even if it's a case of like,
you're going to put your overall result at risk,
just pit your drivers in order.
If it means they can't quite take the fight to driver
in front, fine, but I think trying to meddle
with all of that kind of stuff
probably does need to stop now.
Because also, I mean,
if I was on the pit wall
and Lando gave his honest assessment of the tires,
I'd probably wonder a little bit how honest it was,
but yeah, I don't know.
Maybe that's just me being a bit too conspiratorial there.
We've made it all this way.
And I don't want to overlook the weekend
that not just Ollie Bearman, but Haas in general,
I mean, they're double points weekend for Haas.
And Bearman just as much as I wanted the podium
to sort of shake out the way it did for the championship,
watching Bearman legitimately drive the way he did
was a very cool thing to see for Haas
for the 20-year-old who at times this season
has looked like he didn't really know what he was doing
or having some issues.
What was your takeaway from what we saw from Bearman?
I think it's great news for Ferrari.
Very uncertain season for them.
Shows the pipeline, he's a junior driver.
I thought it was fantastic.
And we've been really blessed this year, haven't we?
With rookies having breakout moments
and we literally saw one on track
and he had that when Lewis went wide
and then Max got wide and compromised Antonelli
and threw it all Bearman came through.
I thought it was a fantastic moment.
It's a really memorable spell in his rookie career.
I thought it was fantastic.
And it shows you how good these youngsters coming through are.
I think all the rookies have had up and down moments.
Bearman has been really impressive
to the people working at Haas.
If you talk to them about the way he's,
obviously he debuted last year with Ferrari.
He had two races with Haas last year.
The way he's come in
and the way he's able to talk to them about the car,
what he wants from it, the way he wants it to drive.
I think they're very impressed with that.
You're always here with Bearman.
He's got an old head on young shoulders.
He was 20, but he comes across a lot older than that.
And just a very likable guy as well, I think.
When you talk to Bearman,
very easy to root for him as well.
So I think there's a massively good trajectory
for him and his career.
And yeah, I mean, obviously next year he's with Haas.
All the talk we've had about Ferrari,
Lewis is his contract year.
Next year with Ferrari, there's been talk
of what does Charlotte Clarke do
if Ferrari doesn't have a title winning car?
A lot of worrying things for Ferrari
in the maybe in the short term.
At the very least, they've got this hot shot driver
coming through the pipeline.
And great for Haas as well.
I was gutted.
At one point, I was like, he's on for the podium.
And I just completely forgot
Max was on an offset strategy
and Max obviously breathed past him.
But fourth position in that car,
given I think people overlook the fact
that the Haas team, the way it operates
compared to the rest of the field,
smallest team by far.
You know, I think they've actually got a lot better
their operation under Aokumatsu
than that has to be said.
But yeah, great performance.
And yeah, just one off,
one off a really crowning moment in not just his career
but nine years Haas have been on the grid
and they haven't been on the podium yet.
So it's equaled their best result
which is quite remarkable in itself
but good signs for them as well going into the season.
I also think like one of the sneaky parts
of what made it so impressive for Ali
was that he wasn't in FP1.
Here's a guy who like had in terms of,
I guess the weekend as a whole
was like limited track time for him
because they had the rookies in the car for FP1.
He came out afterwards and was like,
I disagree with that.
I should have been in the car.
I should have had the chance to be out there.
And he didn't.
So I just, I don't wanna overlook that part of it
because it just makes it,
it's like an extra cherry
on top of the impressive weekend for Ali himself.
Also, I really love like the videos and things like that
we saw after the race for his family.
Like his dad is like super passionate anyway.
Like his dad in like watching his dad during the race
is always so fun because I personally,
like I sort of feel that where you're just like,
you wanna chew off your own arm to like will your person
to like have that moment.
But like the tears from his family,
the tears from his girlfriend after the race,
those are like the super human moments
where sometimes it's easy to forget as a fan
that those are people.
Those are people with real lives and families
and like, you know, this was a really big moment for him
and to see the support that he was getting from his family
and his girlfriend was just, you know,
it was cute and sweet.
And I love that that might have been
maybe my second favorite part of the weekend.
I think my favorite part of the weekend
was watching George Russell go into the stands.
Is it like, I'm, wrestling's not my thing.
It's like the naturally break thing, right?
That was the whole ensemble.
Yeah, the literally very masculine.
Yeah, yeah, there we go.
Yeah, it was so, it was so good.
Like the fact that he was able to go out there and do that.
What I would like to know is like, they posted the photo.
I want to find the people in the stands who are next to him.
Who are next to him, yeah.
Right, and be like, did you know the whole time
this F1 driver was basically sitting right next to you?
What would their response be?
There was a good clip as well of him.
I think as he's walking around,
he sees some Russell fans.
He's like, he's a good driver.
And they're like, yeah, he's the best.
He's the best.
And he's like, yeah, I agree.
Walks on like, if you told them,
that's when he should have dramatically revealed them up.
That's the way, that's how to do it dramatically.
But maybe next time.
And like, I've got to say, my favorite,
my favorite part of the race away from all the drama,
his radio message to Mercedes,
the way he's like, when he was asking to move positions.
Yeah.
If we always joke about how Americans
can't do British accents.
If any American can learn the George Russell accent,
that is, he sounded so proper the whole way through.
Cause at the end, he's like,
if I don't achieve it,
I'm happy to give the position back.
Like it was such a great message.
And I actually kind of liked the way he delivered that.
We talked a few races ago, didn't we,
about how baffling it was,
the idea that Ferrari hadn't told Lewis,
he had to give the position back to Charles.
That was another reminder of just how routine that is.
He's like, let me go and have a go,
trying to get Berman.
And I'll give the position back, which he did.
So I thought, I love that radio message.
I thought George recently has had a lot of
quite entertaining radio messages.
I'm finding him quite entertaining at the moment.
I actually found what Antonelli said after the race too.
Did you see the video where he's like,
ladies first, we've been doing that a lot today?
Yeah, I've heard about this.
I think I missed the boat on the controversy,
but I know Mercedes took the video down.
So that always suggests that there's a backlash.
Well, yeah.
So that's why you can't find it now.
So I always feel like when you do that,
it makes the story a bit bigger.
But so what was it?
He came in and said, ladies first and his cameraman said,
we've been doing plenty of that today or something.
Yeah, there was a strong agreement from,
there was a strong agreement from Antonelli
where like you could tell like,
you knew exactly what he was talking about.
I did not realize that they took it down
because squirrel, I'll get distracted very easily.
And if I see it once, then I pretty much,
that's committed to memory.
That's a wild thing to do to take it down.
I always feel like that makes it way worse.
It does.
That is fuel to the fire for all of that.
Like just come on, like you can't do that.
Once you hit send, once it's out there,
it doesn't actually go away.
Somebody still has it.
We've all seen it.
We're not like, you can't gaslight us.
And I think as well, this story shows you
there is a massive element of Formula One fans now
who to use the Gen Z phrase and just chronically online.
Because if you showed me that video of,
and maybe it's a British humor thing, I don't know.
You know, appreciating the joke,
but he's clearly just a bit of fun about his teammate.
I don't really think there's anything too bad in that.
And there's people acting like,
until they've burnt the garage down or something.
I don't really understand why that's such a big thing.
That's such a big thing.
You said that.
Yeah, I know.
You know, people forget that these guys all spend
all their time together.
You know, that cameraman of Antonelli's,
they'll interact with Russell.
They'll be like, you know, these guys,
the interaction they'll have together.
I mean, maybe there is some internal riff
that we're not talking about,
but you don't get that impression from the Mercedes team.
So I don't see any of this.
He's looking a little baffled at the whole thing.
No, I had somebody mentioned it in a group.
I hadn't seen it before I left Mexico.
And then, yeah, I think by the time I landed,
which was about four hours ago, I hadn't seen it
being taken down either.
But yeah, I'd say of all the driver pairings,
actually, you know, the Russell Antonelli one,
because the positions are so well-defined.
In the Georges, the more experienced driver,
the one that's been going out and getting results.
And Kimmy is still very much in a learning phase.
For this year, at least, it has been very friendly.
I don't mean there's any animosity there.
And if something like that was said,
it would have been absolutely as a joke, not as...
Right.
Not as a...
Antonelli is your classic team joker, isn't he?
There was a video they put out,
I was just trying to remind myself of it,
where last week in Austin,
he goes into the engineering room
and he's like tapping Bono on the back.
And he's like, Bono, Bono, Bono, Bono, Bono.
And Bono takes his headset off.
Like mum, mum, mum.
He's like, yeah, people put that
with the family thing of, mummy, mummy, mum.
And then Bono takes his headset off
and he's like, what do you want?
Like, as if, you know, that clearly happens a lot.
And then Antonelli just says something stupid to him,
like runs off or says what are you listening to or something?
And so clearly, you know, it's a team
that they go racing a lot of the time,
but there's just that, you know,
all these teams have a lot of good friendships
and, you know, good, that kind of energy around them.
So it's always, I always kind of roll my eyes
a little bit when you see people overreacting
to stuff like that.
Yeah, I think it was great.
I think, I think we'll end it there
because Lawrence, when you took off last night,
the game was still going, right?
And it had at least, it had at least ended
by the time you landed.
It did not last the entirety of your life.
Yeah, I think they just entered the 13th
or 14th innings when I had to turn off my phone.
Yep.
So, yeah, I nearly got there, but not quite.
Got it.
All right.
Well, I think the Dodgers and Blue Jays
are actually still playing there
in the 94th inning of a tied game.
Let's hope tonight does not end that way.
I was going to say there's another game tonight, right?
Which is, which is mad.
Which is mad because like,
I hate to bring another sport into this too much,
but the way, like the bullpen situation,
you had Shohei Otani who like his like at bats were insane.
The two home runs, the four extra base hits,
and then they walked him five times.
He was on base nine different times.
That man is their starting pitcher tonight.
Like the whole just sometimes sports are amazing
and sometimes the performances we get, like we don't,
we've talked about this before with Max
if we don't appreciate the greatness in the moment.
I felt that way a little bit about Otani last night.
Like if we're not appreciating the greatness in the moment,
like we are clearly missing out.
All right. That's enough of my soapbox. I'm done.
Thank you for watching Unlap.
Thanks for listening.
Remember, you can hit us up on the ESPN YouTube channel,
like and subscribe.
That's where you're gonna find us
and all of our F1 content all year round.
If you're listening somewhere else, awesome.
Great. Just hit us up with the five star review.
We get a week off as do the drivers
because that's how it works.
We actually don't get a week off.
We'll be back, but they get a week off.
So we'll have much more to talk about next week
because we still have to unpack
all that we think we're gonna see in Brazil.
Until then, last, I know where you're going.
Safe travels. Enjoy.
Can't wait to see your picks.
Nate, I'll talk to you next week.
Yep, see you tonight.
Bye.
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