The Biggest Moments of the 2025 Formula 1 Season

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Hello, hello.

Welcome to Unlap Gang is all here.

It's good to see you guys.

I'm sure you're both, like, exhausted.

Does anyone want to be like, no, I'm fine.

I think we're both pretty exhausted, I'm honest.

To give the listeners some context, it is the Wednesday after Abu Dhabi.

I got back on Monday.

I think Nate was a little bit later coming back.

We were trying to make sure that we weren't both in the air at the same time.

And yeah, it's a weird feeling at the end of a season like that, because the final evening

in Abu Dhabi, there's so much going on, so much to get through, so much to get excited

about, having a new champion as well.

And then you kind of get back and it all just feels a little bit flat.

But hey, good to be on the show and still loads we can talk about, even from this

season.

Oh.

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Is there always, I always feel like there's always like an odd let down, too, once the

season is over, like once something has come to an end, there's just always like

this big run up to the end, to the finish.

And it's like the day after Christmas, where you're just like, oh, that's it.

No more.

And I realize that no more is only for like three months, but still, like there's always

like a slight let down.

Yeah, I saw a very depressing sign on, or picture on Instagram that said, you know,

90 days still Melbourne.

And I wanted nothing to do with that for at least a few more weeks.

You know, it's, you get to the end of the season and it is, it's a weird

one because you, there's so long these seasons now.

You know, by the time we get to the conclusion, you know, it has really

been a slog.

I was just going back and making some notes of this season, you know, before

this show.

And there's some stuff that happened six months ago and it feels like a different

season.

So yeah, weird, weird finish.

I hate finishing in Abu Dhabi as well.

I think that it's not, it's a race that doesn't do the season justice

in that way.

Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm, I, me and Lawrence are probably in the same

boat where for the next few weeks where we're pretty happy that there's

no, uh, you know, no racing.

It's just good to get away, calm it down a bit.

And then by the time, you know, middle of January is around, we'll be

talking about testing.

So, um, people don't have to wait too long.

I think, I think there's like a selfish part of me that is bummed.

And like we all know why, like the ESPN contract has come to an end.

So like F1 is going to Apple next season.

So there is a certain amount of, um, finality to it for at least us in

some respects.

Um, so I think that's where maybe part of my sense.

Depression come from, I know you guys talked about this like at

great length on Sunday, but I don't want to like do this podcast without

at least touching on the fact that the season has done Lando Norris as a

champion, you've had a few days to like digest it now.

Or have, how has sort of like the aftermath, the digestion period, how

has that sort of reshaped, refocused, given you any different

perspective as to how the whole season went down?

I think it's, it's nice that we've got a new world champion.

I think in any season when you, when you can point to multiple

drivers on the grid who have a championship behind them, that's always

a good thing.

That's not to say that it wouldn't have been great if Max had won it

because I think, you know, we'd have this incredible story to get

stuck into of how Red Bull turned it around.

And, you know, they still did all that work.

It's just they didn't quite pay off by two points at the end of it.

But, um, yeah, I think having Lando there is, is, is interesting.

I think he's going to bring like a kind of fresh perspective on all that.

Nate wrote a brilliant piece for anyone who hasn't been checking the website

this week about why Lando is a very different champion to previous ones.

You know, he's very open about stuff.

I think that was very evident from his champion's press conference

where you would ask him one question and he would give you

about four different answers on completely different things,

asking himself questions about where he went wrong and when he had

self-doubt and stuff like this and just being incredibly open about that.

And I suspect Lando will actually continue that and perhaps double down

now that he has the championship behind him.

We saw a lot of nervous energy on, you know, in the weekend before

or the two weekends before stealing that championship.

So I think going into a new year will be interesting what he's like.

So in a way, I think it's it's a very positive thing for the sport

that we got a different champion and also good to see that he wore

a kind of gold helmet at that Abu Dhabi test on Tuesday,

just kind of signifying that he was the champion.

And then next year, he's already said that he's going to run the number one

in his car as well, which I think is always cool seeing that number one

move between cars and teams.

Yeah, I always felt sorry for Lewis Hamilton's mechanics.

You know, he only gave them a couple of runouts with that number one

on the car. Yeah, I think I'd echo everything Lawrence said.

I think what's nice as well from a what's great about getting a new

champion is, you know, I mentioned this on the pod we did the other night.

It's going to surely going to lead to a more fired up Mac Verstappen.

You know, you've been champion for four years.

You want to come back and reclaim that championship.

But there was also a sense I got that Charles Leclerc and George Russell,

especially, saw for the first time somebody from their generation,

you know, winning. I know they're not too dissimilar in age for Max,

but, you know, came into Formula One, you know, 2018 and 2019,

those two guys and Lando came in 2019 with Russell.

I think it was the first time those guys had seen that tangibly of like

one of our guys is now winning the championship.

That does something to the rest of the grid as well.

You know, it gives people an incentive to to go and win it themselves.

And yeah, I think I think it almost makes it steam attainable in some ways,

because I think for a long time, Max was just sort of running away with it.

And Red Bull was on this, this pedestal, this mountain top.

And before that, let's be honest, it was Mercedes.

And there seems to be a changing of the guard in some respects.

And it does make it seem more attainable for the other guys,

because Lewis Hamilton is regarded as one of the greatest to ever do it.

And Max Verstappen is regarded as one of the greatest to ever do it.

So when there is a new guy there who is just the new guy,

it sort of normalizes it a little bit.

Not that any of us could go out and win the World Championship,

but there is a sort of like a normalization to it when it is somebody new.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

No, that's really a good way of putting it, normalization side to it.

And I think as well, it's made a lot of those guys realize, you know,

you don't necessarily get many opportunities to win it.

You know, Charles Leclerc was very interesting on Sunday in Abu Dhabi.

He hinted that the first kind of five, six races next year absolutely key for him.

You know, you can read into that how you want.

Obviously, he's looking at his own title winning ambitions there.

And yeah, and next season suddenly becomes very important with a new rule change.

So yeah, I think it's brought that not that it's never front of mind for those guys,

but I get the impression that for a lot of them, it's now

I think, Nicole, the way you said it's perfect, it feels attainable.

It's a tangible goal.

You know, when when when Schumacher stop winners championships in Alonzo did,

it was like, oh, wow, someone else can win titles

when Hamilton was beaten by Verstappen.

It was like, you know, someone else other than Mercedes can win titles.

So it does it does have that galvanizing effect for sure.

I want to take a look back at some of the things

that we saw this season and sort of just like pick our favorite moments

and things like that in terms of the best races for a win.

And they're also pretty recent.

But I mean, you go back to Austin and Austin was sort of the moment

when you looked at Max Verstappen and thought.

This is real because he had had that super dominant weekend.

It was it was pole.

It was the sprint race.

It was the actual race itself.

And he started to admit, yeah, I am in the title fight.

And that's sort of I think the moment where it truly became a three man race.

And then also then you look at Mexico.

If we got to the end where we did where Landau was the champion,

you can't overlook Mexico.

And just how dominant he was on a completely different level,

like a different planet, like he won by 30 seconds or something obscene.

That was sort of the weekend where, yes, he Landau was good in Austin.

He didn't get the win, but he was good in Austin.

And there were some sort of like, you know, team dynamics at play

where I think going into that weekend, we thought this could be favoring Oscar.

And when Landau came out of Austin and wasn't the one that was sort of

behind, you know, the eight ball and then went from there to Mexico

and did what he did in Mexico.

I think you have to look at those two races as best race win

to put him in the position that he was in at the end of the season

to actually win the championship.

Yeah, I think it was a fair.

I think, yeah, I think by the same, I mean, yeah, Landau in Mexico

was his best race, probably of the season, from what I can remember.

It was classic Landau, you know, when everything was in those conditions,

you know, he was great.

You know, I think Landau does need the car to be in a certain place.

But when it was like that, then, you know, he was spectacular.

I was actually going to go left field here.

I thought I'd be smart and I was going to put Max Verstappen

but him at the Nürburgring, not that we will watch the race,

but in winning the sports car race, it in between, it should be noted

winning in Monza and winning in Baku, which were two wins

that basically revived his season.

The fact that he then even had the the mind and the, you know,

the motivation to then go and race at the Nordschleife

and just, you know, everything associated with that in terms of aura.

I think it's to be honest, that's that three week spell.

I think it's probably the best three weeks

any Formula One drivers had for years.

But I just thought I'd be smart and cheeky and put that one in

because so rare you see a driver do that

and race outside of Formula One to do it like Max did.

I think it kind of added to this mystique of his season, didn't it?

Of like, not only is he

making McLaren pull their hair out,

he's also just gone and had this insane weekend

out possibly the most daunting circuit in the world.

So either I'll be cheeky and and put an asterisk next to mine.

But I'll say that.

Yeah, I didn't wonder why Nate had slipped in best race win

into our run plan before we started.

And it's because he had a great answer.

I just thought it was missing and then I suddenly was like, I can be super.

Now, I mean, that's a that's a really good answer.

But I was actually going to pick a Max one as well,

as in the best race win by any single driver this year

and look back right to the start of the year

and probably pick Suzuka.

There's Suzuka and Imola, two races that he won.

But I'd say Suzuka wasn't a fantastic race by any stretch of

it was probably one of the most boring races of the year.

But the fact that Max went and stuck it on pole position there

with a car that was really not behaving as it should do or to his liking

and against two McLarens that were incredibly well sorted,

had had a huge amount of successful development over the winter

and had basically turned up, you know, some way ahead of the rest of the field

for Max to go and just put the flag in the sand there.

Just make sure he got one victory early in the season.

You know, it as is the case, as he points out at the end of the year,

actually, you know, like all your results across the year are as important as as another.

But but that was one way with all the odds were really stacked against him.

And he just did what Max was up and does and put in an amazing qualifying lap

that then allowed him to control the race from the front.

I was going to consider Suzuka as well.

But then I thought that was actually more the pole.

And it wasn't necessarily the race because the pole led to the race

because there wasn't a lot of passing.

There wasn't a lot of opportunity there.

But that pole, that was the moment.

Who was it? Was it Alonzo in the pen who just literally stopped talking

because he had seen what Max did to put the car on pole and was like,

that was insane.

But I thought that that was more like a qualifying thing and less of a race thing.

So I took it off my list.

That's fair. I mean, it was it was entirely because of the pole position

that he managed to do that. But I think, you know, when you look at these victories,

it is just so much that comes together to put the car on the right.

Well, in that case, the car wasn't in the right place,

but to put the car on pole position.

Yeah, I mean, it's yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, this is turning into a match of staff.

It's a love fest, but I mean, so Lawrence mentioned Imola

and until he mentioned it, I hadn't that just slipped my mind.

But that if we haven't got it on our own plan,

but that's that start was unbelievable at Imola

when it went around the outside of Russell and Piastri.

And you know, it's good when a Max Verstappen move.

I was actually looking back through this when we wrote our review of the season.

George Russell said that's the best overtake I've seen in a long time.

You know, when you're George Russell saying that about Max Verstappen,

you know, it's pretty special.

So Max Verstappen, from what I can tell from what we're doing here,

pretty much the candidate for the best, the best racing driver of the season.

If he didn't win the championship.

Yeah, probably. I agree.

Do you have a favorite podium performance?

Because there actually are a few.

One that I think for me is the stat.

Probably the best podium for a long time.

That's Hülkenberg at Silverstone.

I thought that was so great to see.

You know, it was such a such a long, long time.

And to be honest with you, that stat of him not having the podiums

and never, you know, most starts, you'd kind of forgotten

that he could even score a podium.

It was kind of like, well, he's never he's never going to do it.

And then suddenly he's running in third

and we were we were sat next to each other in the media center.

Lawrence and I in Silverstone.

And there's a moment where I looked at him

and I was like, he's he and Lawrence has already worked this out

because Lawrence is better at reading a race than me.

I was like, I was going to do this, isn't he?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, I think so.

And it was I was like, I can't believe it.

And it was actually, you know, sometimes you

there's sometimes you're like, I want this result

because this driver deserves it or whatever.

As those laps were taken down, I was like, please do not mess this up

or don't have this something happen that takes us away.

And obviously all the focus on Hülkenberg, but also.

And this is something that, you know,

I think Salba generally got overlooked quite a lot in Formula One.

That was such a nice way for them to mark their final season in Formula One.

You know, obviously it's now Audi,

but for Salba to get that podium, you know, they they always have been kind of

the they were kind of the ugly duckling a little bit of grid.

I always felt they were they were a small team,

but they never really performed in a way that got people excited.

They had a couple of title partnerships over the years that didn't really,

you know, didn't really lead to anything stepping forward.

So for Hülkenberg to do it and for it to be with Salba,

really, really nice story and a genuinely,

a genuinely kind of, you know, feel good moment.

And yeah, I was just watching it back again.

And, you know, it's the only the only sad bit of it for him.

And I do take umbrage, but this now I look back on it is

McLaren completely ignoring him on the podium,

which does not look good when you look back at it.

I think they don't think they meant to, but you look at it now

and you're like as a as a visual, it's such a shame

because he's kind of there spraying champagne on his own.

But selfishly, sorry, I'm taking ages to answer this one.

I went down to the Salba garage and hospitality after that

and kind of got a bit of champagne sprayed like all over me

while I was down there.

So that also has a personal kind of resonance as well.

But I think it's hard to talk about.

Yeah, it is hard to be that one, isn't it?

I'd say honourable mentions for Isaac Hadjar in in Zambor.

I think that was a great moment.

And then Carlos Sainz's two podiums for Williams,

which, you know, if we'd rewind to the start of the season

to say that Carlos Sainz was going to be getting podiums in Baku.

But then perhaps a more impressive one in Qatar,

because it's not a circuit that in theory

they should have been particularly competitive up.

So those are good ones.

And then, yeah, just we've got a theme going here with Max.

But I was thinking like which podium was really important

for the title race and Max's podium in Brazil.

I thought was a was a particularly special one,

but also one that kind of just kept it alive

going into the final three races, which was important as well.

And I had that great on board of Ocon.

Was it Ocon, Nicole?

I think you you flagged it where they started

it was Ocon. It's the onboard.

Max just disappearing through the field.

Yeah, unbelievable.

Yeah, he was like, wait for me.

And no, just gone.

No, no, it's like I totally agree.

I don't think you can overlook the Hulkenberg

moment in terms of not just for the team,

but also just for him and just having that moment.

And I think one of the things that I really like the most

about when you have those moments

and we saw it with Lando winning the championship,

how the other teams and drivers respond, you know,

Sauber didn't have enough champagne.

So teams were, you know, handing over the champagne

and the drivers responses.

And that's like the heart of the story.

That's the feel good, the emotional connection

and those are the moments to me

that always kind of stand out the most.

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Did you guys have a favorite rookie?

Like for me, for me, it's Antonelli.

For, I think, a lot of reasons.

One, you've got this kid who comes in

considered in a lot of ways like a generational talent,

but he's also just that.

He's a kid.

To be able to handle the pressure,

the ups and the downs, the expectations

to be the guy who replaced Lewis Hamilton.

Just the amount that was resting

on his 18-year-old shoulders throughout the season.

In a lot of ways, live up to those expectations

and to take a car that, you know,

his teammate won a couple of races, fine,

but there were moments, you picked him to win a race.

I mean, it was not out of the realm of possibility,

but then there were also moments

like with him saying sorry to Max, you know,

and how he had to deal with the online bullying

and then, you know, Max lost the championship

by two points and essentially there were the two points.

If you want to look at it that, you know,

Kimi gave up in Qatar,

you cannot take those two points

and boil it down to one single moment,

but just the human side of him going up to Max

and being like, I'm sorry.

He's an impressive young man, seemingly on the track

and away from it.

So for that, he is my favorite rookie,

not to just count what Isaac Hadjar did.

I think, you know, from race one,

where he crashed before they even took, you know,

the green flag and had to overcome all of that

and then put together the season he had,

that's not overlooking him.

There's just, I think you just developed this soft spot

for Antonelli and I'm going to go with it.

Yeah, I'd say Kimi as well.

I think, yeah, for all the reasons you outlined,

just very likable kid

and probably had the highest pressure, highest stakes.

It would also be bias if I said Berman

because he's from Chelmsford,

which is just down the road from where I grew up.

And I quite often go on BBC Essex to talk about him.

So I've got it, you know,

there's a link there with Berman,

but I think this rookie season is going to go down

in history, isn't it?

Just unbelievable talent.

Portoletto was great as well.

But if we're saying favorites, hard to pass Kimi,

you know, you just want to root for that guy

and you just want to see him doing well.

Yeah, I'd agree Kimi is an incredibly likable guy.

I really was quite a big fan of his going into the season.

I managed to sit down with him last year

and already kind of like realized that this guy was,

you know, superstar in the making,

not just because of Wake doing a car,

but also how he acted and how he talked away from it.

So I'm also a big Kimi fan,

but I think Hajar probably is the one

who exceeded expectations the most.

I mean, I don't think any of us had on our 2025 bingo card

that he would be promoted to Red Bull the following season.

And that is in part because of how badly it's gone

for the drivers who have been in that second seat

alongside Max Stappen,

but it shouldn't take away from the results

that he's put together.

So I think Hajar is perhaps the most impressive

when you just stand back and look at it.

But I think the real unsung hero here is Bortoletto,

Gabrielle Bortoletto,

going into a sour team that has a lot of change going on.

You know, Karl really wasn't very good at the start of the year,

but then did go a lot better towards the end of the year.

And his performance over a single lap

versus Nico Halkenberg,

who has always been a great qualifier,

was really quite impressive.

I think they more or less ended up equal over the season

on qualifying stats,

but I'd say for a driver to come in as a rookie

with a pretty difficult car

and to beat someone seasoned as Halkenberg in

or get close to someone seasoned as Halkenberg

in the same car, that is hugely impressive.

And I don't think Hajar really had

the same teammate comparison.

And that's not against him.

You know, he can only beat the guy

that he's up against.

And I think if you look at Antoinette's record,

you know, understandably, it's quite a long way off George.

But that's why I think Bortoletto,

there's a really good case for saying

that he was the best rookie this year.

Yeah, it's a hard one to rank actually.

It is hard, but...

It's a hard one to rank

because there were so many rookies too.

But they all had...

And they all had...

And they all have a great case as well,

which is actually so rare.

Usually you have, oh, this guy stood out

and this guy kind of looked pretty terrible,

but yeah, they all had a moment.

And I think all four of those guys

are going to be in Formula One for a long, long time,

which I think is awesome.

You know, 10 years from now,

you could come back to this and be like,

remember the 2025 class of rookies?

These guys, you know, there are...

Like you were talking earlier with Lando and George

and in Charlotte coming into the sport

at relatively the same time,

when and if those guys become champions,

you go back to the season in which they entered.

Like that could happen again with the 2025 season.

Do you have a favorite, Lawrence?

Like season-long storyline?

It's gonna sound like a broken record here,

but I was thinking about this

and the best storyline to follow

was Max Verstappen's turnaround

and getting back into the title fight

because if you'd asked us,

basically after the Dutch Grand Prix,

we would have said, you know,

Oscar Piatru is by far the favorite.

Lando's got a chance if he can get the results together

if something goes wrong for Oscar.

But I don't think many of us would have picked out Max

and the fact that he made it a three-way title battle

into the final race was absolutely brilliant.

So I couldn't really look past that

because that is the thing that has got me most excited

as this season has progressed

is the fact that we do have,

or we did have three drivers fighting for the title.

I think, so yes, I agreed.

I think for me that the favorite season-long storyline

is the fact that there was a championship battle,

you know, coming off a few seasons

in which the championship was almost a foregone conclusion.

There was a slight battle last year

where Lando sort of put himself in a position

to question it ever so slightly.

But, you know, Max still clinched the title

in Las Vegas a season ago.

That's still well before the season ends.

So the fact that there was a championship battle

this year between two drivers,

let alone three at the end,

and there were question marks as to who it was gonna be.

There were points in the season

where different drivers led the championship.

To me, just having that

and having that be a part of the conversation

weekend and week out and not really knowing.

I mean, we hadn't gone into the final race of the season

where there were more than two title contenders

since 2010.

So to have that be an element of surprise

and what's gonna happen in a season

in which maybe some of the racing,

like you guys talked about earlier,

like maybe some of the racing on track wasn't the best,

to have questions about who would be the champion

made it a hell of a lot more fun and dramatic.

Yeah, agreed.

I was gonna say Max or the championship.

So there was one I'm gonna throw in there.

I think, I do think that in the grand scheme of things,

nothing for a while is gonna beat the Max season.

I'm gonna keep it in the Red Bull family

and I'm gonna give some props to Liam Lawson

for kind of reviving his own fall-in-one career,

kind of saving it from the brink

because I think Lawrence and I were both there in Suzuka.

He looked kind of broken when he got demoted so quickly.

I mean, that was pretty much just humiliating as it gets.

Two races at the top team.

I thought he dealt with it very, very well

and actually kind of seeing him rebuild that season,

rebuild himself, get himself to a position

where not only was he performing well

but racing balls and Red Bull have decided

to keep him around for another season.

Yeah, I thought that was nice.

I thought it was, you know, it was,

I didn't wanna see a great promising talent like that

just kind of thrown on the trash heap, so to speak.

So not obviously one that captured a lot of attention

in the headlines but just as a nod to it,

thought it was very nice to see that.

And yeah, full credit to him for being able to do that.

I mean, it's an interesting one

because had he not been chucked out of Red Bull

after two races, I don't think,

and he'd stayed there the whole season,

I don't think he'd be in F1 next year.

I think we'd be talking probably about Yuki

in the Red Bull going into 26.

You know, I would have thought Yuki would have

to measure a visor across the whole year.

Maybe not, maybe Hajar would have shone through

and still taken that seat.

But I think that was such a big moment

and we were quite critical of Red Bull

for ditching a driver after two races

not giving him the chance to get back in it.

But if you look at it retrospectively,

then it does seem as though

that was the thing that actually saved Lawson's career.

Obviously, conversely, it's probably buried to nodders.

I mean, now he's a reserved driver,

so he's still there to put pressure on whoever's

struggling next year within the Red Bull fold.

But yeah, I think it's a really like key moment there

for Lawson if he goes on to have a, you know,

more successful career beyond this

that he actually got dropped by Red Bull was a key thing.

But then, you know, we've seen that a number of times,

haven't we, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon,

drivers that seem to be broken coming out

of the Red Bull racing team

and have gone on to have impressive careers elsewhere.

I mean, we've said it about Sergio Perez too.

Like there were parts of us last season

where we were like, what the hell is wrong with this guy?

And this season, we're looking at it a little differently.

Like suddenly he doesn't look so bad anymore.

In fact, suddenly he looks great.

And maybe not that, you know,

that irrelevant as a fact.

I'm sure Lee of Lawson has probably thought about this.

Can you imagine in Japan, pointing at Lee of Lawson

and say, that guy is going to outlast Helmut Marco

and Christian Horner within the Red Bull company.

You know, the two guys that both promoted him

and then sat him down and said, you're out.

They're both now gone.

And that maybe speaks to some of the chaos

around the decisions around, you know,

his career and your right, Nicole,

around the Czecho decision around, you know,

Limblad, I think Limblad's coming up too early,

you know, the rookie coming up now.

And there's, you know,

we'll talk about Marco in a little bit.

There seems to be a link there.

So yeah, you know, within that mess of Red Bull,

it's good that he's survived.

And I'm sure that, you know,

he'll reflect on that irony at some point,

you know, over the off season.

Cause yeah, I don't think anyone would have put it

to that in a million years.

Favorite race of the season,

not for what happened on the track,

not for like a storyline, just selfish reasons.

Favorite race of the season.

I would say,

Oh, it could be a race you got to stay home.

I would, no, I would say Austin,

you know, all of us being together and Austin was great.

Austin is just, for me, is the best race

that we go to a former one.

You know, I love that one.

Obviously you mentioned it in the cold as well,

you know, it was kind of the last one we're doing

as big as ESPN does it.

So yeah, that was, that was pretty, pretty special.

And I think we got to do that podcast

where I sat on top of a bull as well,

which was pretty memorable.

I'm not going to top that ever in my career.

So from a selfish reason,

I can't look past that.

Not that just to clarify the people listening,

it wasn't a real one, sadly,

but everyone who's seen my WhatsApp profile picture,

which is that, like how did you get-

It had been a real bull.

It had been, oh yeah, yeah,

it looked like a very healthy bull at one point.

But yeah, and I'm just sat on top of it.

And so many people on my WhatsApp are like,

how did you manage to get on top?

And how did you,

oh my guys, I don't know who you think I am.

My cowboy skills are not that good.

But yeah, that was that,

just that whole weekend was pretty special, I think.

Yeah, that's a very good shout.

I'm not sure I'll forget Las Vegas for a while.

I don't know whether it's because it's my favorite,

but it was certainly memorable,

just the chaos that ensued

when we got the note proof from the FIA

that both McLaren's were under investigation.

I don't know what that says about me,

probably just the-

I like maybe-

I think you enjoy the drama.

Yeah, the drama pretty much.

But Vegas is always quite a fun one, actually.

Again, we were all together there, so that was good.

But I can't argue with Nate.

Austin was really fun this year, wasn't it?

Yeah, Austin was fun, Vegas was fun,

I think for me personally of those three,

because those are the only three I get to go to.

I think I liked Miami the best.

I don't know why.

Didn't you and I, actually you and I, Lawrence,

we got thrown on, the race ended early,

there was some questions about rain or whatever,

and then you and I, the last minute,

you guys have to go on ABC to help fill time

for three minutes because local news

and the world was tonight or something,

we're not, they're not ready, so you guys have to go.

So it was a fair amount of chaos at the end.

So selfishly, I think I might go Miami

as being my favorite race of the season.

This last one, though, this one feels mean,

I'm not gonna lie, worst driver of the year.

This was an eight saunders edition, so later on,

I just, I felt like we had a lot of bests, didn't we?

Bestest, best that.

I was just jotting things down

that I thought were in the rundown.

I mean, to me, just given the hype around him

and given the fact that he also replaced the driver

that I think kind of got a bad rap,

you know, it was hard done by,

Cola Pinto was probably the standout guy

that just didn't perform across the season.

But to cut him some slack,

Alpine wasn't exactly a car he could thrive in,

but you've got to beat your teammate,

at least, he'll be close

and Cola Pinto's just never looked that close.

So I think he was actually quite lucky

to stay on for another season.

That would be my question.

The way you started that is that you feel sorry

for the guy who replaced,

I thought you were gonna say Lewis, but...

Oh no, well, Lewis, Lewis could be,

I mean, Lewis did win a sprint race,

but maybe he's the obvious one.

Lewis is mine.

I think he's the most disappointing driver of the 2025.

My worst driver, I just went back and looked at,

you know, versus teammate qualifying performance

and other stats like that and 15 Q1 eliminations

and that was Lance Stroll.

But I have to say, going into the season,

I may have predicted some of those.

I mean, certainly Alonzo would beat him across the season

and there were a few highlights for Stroll,

you know, you got a few seven place finishes.

I think there was one in Silverstone,

Sandvore, Springs to Mind.

So, you know, there were highlights as well.

But then, that's with Lewis, you know,

Lewis had those high points,

but the end of the year especially was just so disappointing.

So in terms of just disappointment

because my expectations are understandably very high

for a seven-time world champion, I'd say Lewis.

But sorry, I don't wanna steal your thunder there, Nicole.

I feel like I've already just stolen your...

No, that's fine.

Like, I think there is a difference

between worst driver and most disappointing driver.

So you can make the argument for Colopinto,

you can make the argument for Stroll.

I just kind of can't, I love Lewis.

Don't get me wrong, I love Lewis.

I love what he has done for the sport.

I love what he has done for the sport away from the sport.

I think he's one of the greatest of all time.

But because of that and the expectation,

seeing him in red and the expectations

that we had for him going into the season

and the expectations I think we all had for Ferrari,

the way that they finished last season

going into this season,

having both of those drivers there

and then to just have Lewis not do anything.

He was outperformed Lila Claire,

the majority of the season.

Yes, you could talk about the sprint race win

in China all you want, but it's a sprint race win.

Yes, points are awarded

and it probably comes down to a little bit

at the end of the season for the champion.

But if you were looking at Ferrari,

you wanted so much more for Lewis.

You expected so much more for Lewis.

You expected so much more for Ferrari

and it just never happened.

And then you look at the way it ended

and how Lewis was going about

and how he was speaking every time he was knocked out

and in Q1, there was just like,

it was like a gut punch every time.

And it's just, it's hard to shake.

So while I don't think he's the worst driver by any means,

I think I just can't, I personally can't shake

the disappointment that came with what we were hoping for.

You know, even if he didn't win a race,

he wasn't on the podium.

Yeah, and he seemed, he was so far from our

kind of memories of what Lewis Hamilton is as well.

You know, so I think that actually,

if you were, if you're judging it based on,

I think Lawrence made a good point there

with Lance Joel, like the expectation is kind of there

that he's not going to beat Alonzo that often.

The expectation for Lewis was sky high

and he, if it was worst in terms of your expectations,

pre and post, I think it's probably Lewis.

But yeah, he at least had a few moments where he looked,

he looked at least, you know, semi-decent,

but do you think Ferrari have had this conversation?

Like the higher ups of like, is this guy this bad?

Like, do we need to think about what we do after 26?

Because Oli Berman looks pretty...

I don't know, you wrote the book on Ferrari, you tell us.

Well, I'm saying, you know, Oli Berman looks pretty...

Over there.

Oli Berman looks pretty good right now, you know.

As you sit there, obviously, he's only had one season,

but that's the alarming thing if you're Ferrari

is suddenly you spent, you know, all this money on Lewis

and he just doesn't look that good.

But he has always said 26 is the year to judge him on.

I still think that is going to be the case,

but you know, if anything,

he's reset the expectations now to be pretty low.

And that might help him next year.

Who knows in terms of, you know, how he looks, but...

But yeah, I think Lewis is a fair answer.

If Ferrari are thinking that,

then they've got their priorities entirely wrong.

Like to look at...

But this is Ferrari, right?

So you could imagine they are thinking...

It's the seven-time world champion

who we couldn't, you know, build a car

that was competitive enough for him

and the car which he actually won a race in,

where it turns out it was illegal

when it got to the Grand Prix.

I mean, I think, you know, Ferrari

needs to have quite a good hard look at themselves

before they're pointing the finger directly at Lewis.

But I think, you know...

But Lewis was very clear about that, didn't he?

Pretty much, she pointed the finger at Lewis.

Yeah, yeah, he did, yeah.

Right, let's talk less and drive away.

Yeah, yeah, which was surprising,

especially as most of the stuff Lewis was saying

was criticizing himself.

You know, I think he was actually very, very open

throughout the year about how poor a job

he felt he was doing.

But you know, I think there's deeper problems there.

Then the quality of a seven-time world champion

in the car is my opinion.

But anyway, we'll see if they solve them, make sure.

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["Ski and Snowboard"]

Can one of you guys sing,

we are the champion?

And then just be like,

Nicole is the champion.

Make a little bit of sense to do that.

Can you just-

I feel-

Why?

So down the stretch, I always had to go first.

I had to, I had to,

and then you guys just copied each other's picks.

So you played it safe.

In fairness,

in fairness,

Laz and I had like the same picks.

If you go back and listen,

we had very similar picks from week one.

That's why I started writing them down

and like showing you.

Yeah, that's proof.

This is what I got.

No, no, I think you had the lead all season

as well pretty much, so you've-

Well, when you are the worst,

you should have to go first.

That is sort of like, you know,

the price you pay for bringing up the rear.

Okay, I think we did it differently in previous years,

but that's fine, you know, rules change.

But also, Nate, you can't blame us for the quality of it.

If you were going first,

like you had freedom-

No, I'm saying, I made picks that you guys were like,

well, I'm going to go safer than this.

Maybe I was being too,

I think I was being too risky at the end,

but I'm just kind of-

I had my picks written down

before you even started for the record.

My picks were written down.

Anyway, final standings,

Nate with all of 12 points,

Laz with 16, me with 18.

Oh, for the record, you-

Laurence and I, we didn't score points the final two.

Yeah, I-

We didn't score points the final two seasons.

You scored one, Nate, one.

I was on a single finger

still at the end of the season, I think, so pretty bad.

What's crazy about that is that over 24 races,

Nicole did the best out of the three of us

and still only got 18 of the top three positions right.

So not just 18 actually getting the top three,

like just single drivers in the right place,

which shows that, you know,

for all the kind of boring races

there were this season,

it was pretty unpredictable, you know,

in terms of who was going to win races.

It went into each race

and it wasn't clear who was going to come out in front,

which has not always been the case in F1 recently.

So I think, you know, it says a little bit about us,

but it also says a little bit about how this season-

You're going to say you've been too kind about our talent.

I think it means that I was, I did great.

I think it means that I did a really good job to beat you to.

And I would like to thank the Academy.

I would like to thank my sponsors, the Canteen Ladies,

my mom and dad for always believing in me.

And here's to 2026.

Speaking of 2026, I want to look ahead

because obviously there have already been things

that have come out,

but I think the biggest sort of development

is helmet Marcos exit from Red Bull.

When you look at where that team is headed in 2026,

how does his departure impact

what we're going to see from them?

Well, it's uncharted territory for them really, isn't it?

If you look at now,

the pillars of that team coming into this decade

have all gone.

Bar Max Verstappen, you know,

obviously Dietrich Matzschutz,

the owner of the team passed away in 2022.

We saw Nui's gone to Aston, Horner obviously left.

And the funny thing with Marcos is,

I think he felt right, this is great now.

This is my team, I'm in control, him leaving.

I'm not sure how much impact it's going to have

on the running of the race team itself

in terms of operationally with the car.

The big thing for him is going to be the fact

that for so long he's been credited

with overseeing that driver program.

And I think that a lot of the chaotic decisions

that have been made were kind of a 50-50 thing.

Him and Horner always disagreed.

The drivers were kind of a power play

for the two of them.

But I think the question we're all going to have

is what it means for Max Verstappen.

He's always said Marco is an important part

of him being there.

Marco brought him to the team.

You know, it is being framed as a retirement.

I'd heard that there was a talk of retirement

even last year from Marco,

but this seems a little bit different.

It seems like he's been kind of almost,

it potted to the end of the plank

and then made to jump off on his own terms

but still was put on the edge of the plank by the team.

So yeah, in terms of 26, I think it's fascinating

because this Red Bull team now looks so different

to the one that was able to re-establish itself

as the best team on the grid.

Max is still there.

We've got Lauren Mekkes.

He's obviously doing a very good job there.

But yeah, it's hard to imagine

walking into that hospitality center.

I mean, it was hard enough getting used

to not seeing Christian there from July onwards.

Marco the entire time, I've been there from the one,

you walk in there and he is just sat in,

same as Horner, they were just

always in that hospitality center,

always talking to people, always involved,

always kind of asking you what's going on around the place

and suddenly those guys aren't there.

It's a good reminder that in Formula One,

the power can go away very quickly.

But for me, the big thing that,

and I can already see Max getting annoyed

with the questions early in the season

when they come to him, but it's,

what does this mean for you?

Does this, a few years ago,

I think it was Saudi Arabia 2024,

I was in the press conference there

where he said, I leave this team if Marco goes away.

And that was a year and a half ago.

So I think things have obviously changed internally since then,

but yeah, very uncertain times there.

And now suddenly if Red Bull are in a bad position next year

with the new engine, the new car,

you do wonder if Marco's not there,

is it easier for the staff

to imagine a world beyond Red Bull?

So I think that's where for me,

the fascinating part of the story is.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be a very different Red Bull

going forward as a much more corporate Austrian

controlled Red Bull, which is,

which is what the people in charge want.

It's still the direction of travel

we've seen throughout this season,

but I'm not sure it's really necessarily

a good thing for the sport because, I mean,

there were a lot of things that Marco said,

which were absolutely not good for the sport

and things where he really put his foot in his mouth

and got things fundamentally wrong,

as recently as the Katara Grand Prix

where he claimed that Antonelli had given up

fourth place to Lando Norris.

But I think a lot of the essence of what Red Bull was

and the edginess of Red Bull came from

Horner and Marco and whether actually

getting rid of that could be a positive thing

and it could actually unleash performance going forward.

That is a possibility,

but I think it's a tricky situation right now

because, like I said,

they're going in with a new engine next year.

That's a huge, huge job to pull off,

something that was put in place by Horner, really.

Horner had really worked hard to build that up,

so it's going to be an interesting situation now.

If that doesn't go well,

there's going to be a lot of blaming of the guys

that are already not there,

but then will that keep Max of the team very much doubted?

So, like Nate said,

it really does open up a lot of questions going forward

and whether Red Bull will continue to be

the power that they have been in the sport

up until now.

I mean, we were asking those questions

even with Marco still there this season,

but I also think like change is inevitable.

If not for nothing,

we're talking about an 82-year-old man.

Marco's 82, like not to be mean,

but like he's not going to stick around forever.

Change is inevitable for a lot of reasons

and those questions about Red Bull were there already.

I do think like you went back to 2024

when Max said I'm in this team because of Marco

and if Marco leaves and I'm out too.

I do think that they were under

slightly different circumstances.

100%.

The context in which the comments were made

are different than what I think

the retirement is happening now.

I have questions about Red Bull,

but I have questions about Red Bull

I think whether Marco is there or not.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, I mean, it is true.

I think Marco said in a recent podcast that he had,

I don't know whether contracts are right works.

I'm not sure he had an exact kind of normal

kind of employment contract in place.

If he had an agreement to be there until the end of 2026.

So I mean, it was certainly on his mind

and I think he had been speaking for some time about

at what point, does he step back

and I should probably point out

82 years old is quite old to be traveling around the world

as part of a Formula One team.

But I think it's perhaps not so much

that he's gone and that Horn has gone.

It's just the speed at which

all those changes have happened at Red Bull,

including I think probably the biggest one of all

in terms of performance on track as well

was Adrian Newey leaving last year as well.

Prior to that, Rob Marshall had left,

Jonathan Wheatley left to go and be

the Salbert team principal, Will Courtney

has gone, he's on gardening leave at the moment.

He was the head of strategy and he's going to McLaren.

So it's just the speed of change there's been

at Red Bull creates a lot of questions.

But I think if it does go wrong next year,

I think they'll probably look and say,

well, it was partly the plans have been put in place

by the old guard, the putters here.

But to Nate's point, which is this point

I was trying to make originally is that

that's not going to matter to Max Verstappen.

I don't think Max has got any interest

in hanging around at any team.

If it's not competitive and not able

to deliver him race victories,

even less so when he's lost a close ally

like Helmut Marco, the other team.

I was just going to shout out some reporting

from one of the Dutch journalists

that was fantastic this week.

So Jackie Martins who works at the Limburger,

which is one of the newspapers in the Netherlands.

He mentioned that this year the, you know,

the ally ship between Verstappen's and Marco

had become a bit strained.

One of the things that I just wanted to let our listeners

know, because I think it's an incredible bit of detail

that Jackie Martins reported on was,

we mentioned earlier that Limberg,

sorry, that Limblad had come up quite early.

It seems that Marco's kind of final dealings

in the driver program is what really pushed him towards the end.

So Limblad being signed early seems like a Marco call.

The Alex Dunn situation.

Now Alex Dunn is a name that might not be too familiar

with people listening, but Helmut Marco,

by according to a couple of the reports in the Netherlands,

basically signed Alex Dunn from McLaren on a development deal.

Red Belostria looked at it and said,

what on earth are you doing?

We don't think he's the guy going forward.

Helmut Marco said, well, I'm the godfather

of the driver program.

I say he is and I say, well, we say he's not.

They had to pay a lot of money to get Alex Dunn out of that.

And Alex Dunn now seems to be on the verge of signing

a deal with Alpine.

That gives a glimpse a little bit into the fact

that Marco had become a bit,

shooting from the hip a little bit too much.

And exactly what Lawrence was saying,

that corporate Red Bull, think Red Bull Leipzig,

think the Red Bull teams that that company has,

I can see them becoming,

they've already become very corporate.

I mean, you look at the fun,

I think the Austrians have tried to get back

to some of the fun things of old,

but that team has stopped running in the way

that maybe has made it a captivating team.

So Marco not being there,

it's kind of the last cowboys that has kind of left

the ranch of Red Bull, I think.

So hopefully they've got a few more characters

in the pipeline.

I think the cowboy idea is a really good way

to sort of like characterize him a little bit.

There is a shoot from the hip.

There is a speak first, think later,

old school mentality that maybe doesn't fly anymore.

And it does, among all the other things,

it does sort of signal the shift in mentality a bit.

This is like the most American thing ever,

but the Super Bowl is kind of a big deal over here.

Totally American football.

Gets a few eyeballs, no big deal,

but Cadillac is going to unveil their livery

during the Super Bowl.

I'm a little biased, it's fine, but I love it.

I love it because of the eyeballs,

because of the excitement that already exists

around the event.

I love it because then it gets other people

that may not be totally tuned in or dialed in

with what this is or what's happening.

It's just like introducing maybe a new audience

potentially to it.

So I really like what Cadillac is doing

in their timing and the place.

And yes, it's very American.

Yeah, this is huge as well,

because remember one of the arguments

against allowing Cadillac in as an 11th team

when the idea was first floated from F1 was that,

well, are they really going to bring the value to the sport

that we need from an 11th team?

Is it worth diluting the revenues

that gets shared among the teams to an 11th team?

Are they really going to add something to that?

And I think this is a perfect example of where Cadillac can.

I mean, I think we have to be realistic about Cadillac's,

you know, what they can achieve on the track next year.

I think Cadillac are realistic about that,

but then there's what they can achieve off the track.

And this is a great starting point.

So, yeah, I'm super excited to see,

first of all, what the commercial looks like,

because I know Super Bowl commercials are a big deal.

You know, even in the UK,

where we don't get to watch them live,

we still see them all through YouTube and everything else.

So it's always a big deal there.

And yeah, just to see how they present it.

And yeah, are you right?

How much it helps just kickstart this F1 season

and grab an audience that probably many of which

have never really, maybe aware of F1,

but never really watched anything.

Oh, actually, cool Cadillac are involved.

I might see how they get on.

Yeah, I think it's so cool.

I think at that point about, you know, the value,

I think Cadillac are enjoying the fact

that they've already been, you know, they've secured this.

They've got the big Disney Plus documentary

with Keanu Reeves.

They've really, they've gone all in on this F1 team.

And you know, I think that they're going all in

in a way that means if they are a bit slow

performance wise in terms of getting up to speed,

it will be fine because the size

and the aura of what they're doing is going to be,

is kind of going to outweigh us on the track.

But yeah, I agree with you, Nicole.

I mean, I think this is the other great thing

that I think Cadillac are already doing

is they're saying, we're American.

What's more American than going in in the Super Bowl?

You know, I don't know what their car's going to look like,

but the one thing that was always frustrating

with the Haas team was they never lent into that thing.

They never let, they were never like,

let's put the stars and stripes in the car.

Let's make it American.

It was always just this corporate, you know,

machine tool colors a lot of the time,

you know, from Gene Haas' company.

Cadillac, there's few things outside of America.

There's few things that resonate

as American more than Cadillac.

You know, Cadillac is just something that you hear.

You think of Cadillac, you think of General Motors,

you think of Detroit.

It is, you know, it's America.

So I think they're doing a great job to do that.

Nicole, you can answer me this

because one of the frustrating things I have

with watching the Super Bowl is we watch it

and it starts after midnight.

And usually the coverage in the UK is great,

but what we miss, Lawrence is right,

you usually have to watch them on YouTube afterwards.

You have to find them out

and because we have our own adverts,

which are just, you know,

usually not geared towards the Super Bowl.

They're just bespoke adverts, right?

Like I really want to watch Super Bowl one day

with the advert experience as part of it.

Is that as big of a part of a Super Bowl as like,

I know the game is huge,

but is it like the halftime show

of us like watching and reviewing and laughing along?

It is.

See, that's big in itself.

No, it is.

Because people are going to...

Right, the whole thing.

Yeah.

The whole thing is big.

I think, you know, because there's always like,

you have a Super Bowl party,

you're always hanging out with like friends

and eating and drinking and like,

not just like, you know, whatever.

You're just, there's like a, it's a day.

It's a day.

The Super Bowl is an entire day.

It's not just the game.

The weird thing about the ads are

they now come out early.

So you can see them before.

And then obviously what you didn't see,

you can see on YouTube and various platforms afterwards.

But most of the time now you've changed your brain

to not pay attention to the commercials.

So I always find this early on in the Super Bowl,

I'm watching it and then the commercials will come

and I'll like instinctively turn away

to do whatever it is that I'm going to do next

or whatever.

And I need to remind myself, no, no, no, no, no,

not today.

And it is a thing.

My kids, my girls are 12 and nine.

They're not the biggest of sports fans,

which is weird in this house,

but they will watch the Super Bowl,

whether it's because they're trying to see Taylor Swift

or because they're interested in the commercials

or they're interested in the halftime show.

So I can get them involved because of that.

I'm voting, by the way,

I'm hoping it's a pink Cadillac.

Yeah, I mean, they've given hints of that, haven't they?

I'm really, really hoping for a pink Cadillac

and there are so many cultural ties to that.

It's the funniest thing that they could do.

And I'll be honest, if it's like a Stars and Stripes

put the bald eagle on a Americana car,

I'm going to be so disappointed.

Like, if it's not a pink Cadillac, that's a fail.

That's a fail.

Yeah, I feel like you've got an opportunity

with that car to really stand out.

Like, the Audi recently did their brand reveal,

didn't they, where, you know, and it was very Audi colors

but, and it's hard to see it until the sponsors go on it,

but they kind of had the colors on the back

and it was like a predominantly gray.

And sometimes you're like,

you want to grab these manufacturers

and the guys making the cars,

you want to say, look guys, make this look great.

Like, just make this look insanely cool.

Fans will love it.

People in 20, 30 years time,

people still talk about the Camelotus cars, don't they?

Because of how great they looked.

You know, you could show someone that car

and be like, how good does that look?

You know, it happened to be very good

and Senna's car, et cetera.

But people talk about stuff like that.

So a pink Cadillac would be great.

But also make it, like make it so that

when you see it on the track,

you know exactly who it is.

Yeah.

You know, whether it's running at the front

or in the back, make it so that it is recognizable

instantly.

Don't leave it up for question.

Don't leave it up for doubt.

Is that the gray car or is that the blue car?

Like just make it obvious as to who you are and own it.

Like obviously there's been a pink car

in Formula One before,

but to have it be a pink Cadillac, like.

Yeah.

Come on.

Let's go.

There's also, it would give me permission

to just sing a Bruce Springsteen song all season as well.

So, you know.

I mean, I know a lot of people sing about pink Cadillacs,

but he's actually got one called Pink Cadillacs.

Yeah.

Are you excited for the new 2026 cars

and the new regs and whatever?

Like obviously it's the end of the ground effects era.

It's the end of DRS.

There are a lot of questions as to what we're gonna see.

Are you excited?

Not excited?

Where do we stand?

I'm excited for what it's like.

I'm excited because I think it's about time

we had a change.

You just mentioned a few things.

And the fact we talked about this season

and a lack of excitement and overtaking says it all really.

I don't think given a blank sheet of paper,

these are the regulations I would have come up with

to ensure that going forward.

I think they're gonna take a lot of getting your head around,

a lot of understanding why certain things

are happening in the race

and potentially a lot of things going wrong

early on in the season as well.

That could add a bit of unpredictability,

which is never a bad thing.

But yeah, I think it's gonna be a whole new,

almost language coming out of the F1 paddock

and testing as to what the problems are with the car.

A bit like when we had the start of this era

and we started talking about porpoising,

which was the cars bouncing up and down,

which was actually an issue

right up until the end of this year.

There's gonna be all these new issues

and positives potentially as well to get your head around.

I like that from my perspective

as like a hardcore F1 fan.

I like the fact that, you know,

we've got a whole new set of regulations to get our head around.

I just hope they don't diminish the racing too much

or become too complicated

or just a bit too difficult to get your head around.

Yeah, early indications from some drivers

has been very complicated to drive in the sim.

There's a lot of things drivers have to do.

I mean, obviously DRS is going away, isn't it?

For an energy-based system.

So I've got some skepticism about it,

but I think, you know, you always see with Formula One

that they kind of iron out some of the confusing bits,

but I think the biggest thing

that could really hurt Formula One

is Lawrence's right to mention 2014.

It was my first year covering Formula One

and the difficulty we had explaining to a layman fan

about the hybrid power units

and the technicalities behind it all.

You know, I don't think it's gonna be as complicated

as that, but there are a lot of things

going on with these cars that are gonna be

pretty difficult to explain, you know, just to a casual fan

who ultimately just wants to see who's got the quickest car

and who's gonna win with that.

So, but then we did allude to it earlier.

I don't think, hopefully, it surely can't be as bad

as this year in terms of overall racing.

So if there's an improvement even there,

I think we're in a good spot.

It made me laugh though when you were like,

oh, drivers, they're complaining about it

in the sims, whatever, like seriously,

if you ever find a driver who is completely happy,

you found a unicorn.

So just don't hold your breath on that.

Yeah, so I can dance too, good point.

Like even when they have a great car,

they're like, there's, you know, I live with one,

so it's not like I can't throw him under the bus as well.

Is there a team or a driver

that most intrigues you for 2026?

I sort of have a small list

and they're all for different reasons,

but like, is there a team or a driver

that you've got up there?

Yeah, he's pointing back at the book,

Ferrari's on the top of my list too.

I think for me, I mean, just given what happened this year,

given the John Alkin comments,

given that Charles the clerk looks like,

you know, at least he's got it in his head like,

okay, maybe my future's not at Ferrari

given that Lewis has gone there

and has underperformed, I think,

it's all about Ferrari next year, you know,

not just because of the implication of 2026,

but the implication for Ferrari

of just being off the pace for another regulation cycle

or at least not being the team to beat.

I mean, after a while, if that happens again,

you start to wonder, how does that team get beyond that?

You know, how do they, what do they do?

You know, so for me, it's them.

I mentioned earlier about the sixth racing with the clerk.

I think that, I think I mentioned it on a,

I think I said it on a pod before,

but there's nothing that would sum up Ferrari's failures

more than the clerk leaving that team,

you know, given what he means to that team,

but also what that team means to him

and just the fact that I think deep down,

he just wants to stay there forever

and drive Ferraris for the rest of time.

If you drive him away by just not getting a regulation

change, right, then that's pretty telling.

But I've got, I've got some optimism.

You know, Ferrari did stop developing this year's car

quite early, I think that's worth pointing out

and Ferrari do tend to develop cars very well

around regulation changes.

What happens is when they get to the regulation change

and suddenly everyone is criticizing the performance,

they then lose their way.

So hopefully they have a good baseline next year

on both the engine and the aerodynamic side,

but I think it's a huge year for a lot of people

who work at that team, you know,

from the ground up to the very top,

you know, to John Elkin as well,

because you know, John Elkin has presided

over this Ferrari team now for a little while.

So yeah, I think it's got to be that.

I would say Aston Martin's the other team

which I'm really intrigued by just because

obviously Adrian knew he was going there,

now becoming the team principal as well,

not a role that any of us thought he was going to move into

when he first left Red Bull and went to Aston Martin,

but they just have all the facilities as well.

They have everything there.

I mean, I've been to that factory a few times now.

They often invite us over during the British Grand Prix weekend

because it's literally across the road

from the entrance to Silverstein.

And everything there is in place,

but it's quite clear that perhaps, you know,

not everything is perfectly happy behind the scenes,

given the changes in management

and the cowl being moved into a position

which I think will suit him,

overlooking Honda and the fuel supplier

and the lubricants and all the rest of it

and making sure that all marries with the chassis

is absolutely cowl's expertise,

but it seemed quite late in the day that they made that change.

It also seemed like Adrian knew he wasn't

the most natural fit as team principal,

so what's really going on there?

Are they going to hit the ground running?

Or do they already know that they're not going to hit

the expectations they need

and therefore changes are already being made?

And then of course, you know, Honda coming in,

a big change for them,

but Honda are a magnificent engine manufacturer

that up until this year

had won the previous four with Red Bull.

So it's almost like there's no more excuses for Aston Martin.

Everything is in place

and they finished seventh this year as well.

So that's not great, of course,

but it does mean that they get extra aero development

compared to the teams that they want to be their rivals

against McLaren who won the constructors championship

and then Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari,

you know, they're going to have a significant more

amount of development

because that's the way the regulations are set

to allow teams to catch up if they've been doing poorly.

So it's almost like they will have run out of excuses

by the end of next year

if they're not at least tracking towards

podiums and race wins.

It maybe is too much to expect an immediate turnaround,

but if they're not tracking towards that,

if it's not all the signs that are lining up

that they're going there, then that's a big deal.

So, and also just to see what,

what age when you can come up with

under a new regulation set.

He arrived a little bit later than you would have wanted

because the work on these cars started

basically the start of this year is

when they were allowed to start

putting stuff in the wind tunnel and through CFD

and knew he was what, three or four months later than that,

but still he's had a lot of time

to get his head around the regulations

and then come in and kind of say, right,

this needs to be here, this needs to be like that.

Here's the overall concept

and then the team will work on a lot of the details.

So for me, that's a fascinating one.

But I think it also speaks a lot to form the one right now

because Nicole, I'm sure you've got teams as well

that you could name, but there's a whole bunch

who are really leveling up,

Salba becoming Audi, Cadillac coming on the grid,

Williams with their turnaround

that they've done over the last year.

There's so many that you could pick and say,

this should really be their year.

And of course, that's never the case.

There's always one team or several teams

that are further back down the grid.

I think you can go top to bottom

and make a case for every team

as to why they could be the most intriguing.

And then honestly, you have to look at McLaren.

They did not have moments this year

where they maybe handled things the best way internally

with personnel.

And they did have to focus a lot on this season

to get their drivers the championship.

They've won the Constructors Championship two years in a row.

The pressure is on them now.

It is going to be an intriguing conversation

to see how they follow up on everything.

And I do think in terms of driver relationships,

what did Piaz Tri sort of learn from this season?

How is he going to be different next year

based on how everything played out this year?

Ferrari top of list for all the reasons that Nate said,

Williams to me is a team that is ahead of schedule.

They've sort of said the same thing.

I think the two surprise podiums this year

from Carlos are just that they're surprising

but it's also sort of like a tip of the hat

to the work that's being done behind the scenes

and also the potential that exists.

For me, and this sort of leads into the next question

I'm going to have too, it's Mercedes.

You know, Mercedes was second

in the Constructors Championship this season.

They were the other team to get wins this season

with George and George got a couple of them.

There were times when we were looking at Kimmy

as being an actual contender

to do something more than just get on the podium.

Yeah, the sprint race pole in Miami,

they're already being looked at

as sort of like the team to beat next season

and with expectations come sort of the conversation

of can you live up to them?

And it's been a few really lean years from Mercedes

and they lost Lewis Hamilton.

So what can they do?

And can they live up to the expectations

that are already being set?

But again, like you could go through top to bottom

and have a conversation about every team

as to why they're intriguing.

Haas, losing their title sponsor

and then having the agreement with Toyota Gazoo.

You know, what does that look like?

You know, how does that impact their development

in things they do down the line?

Yeah, it's like literally every team from top to bottom.

But I'm going to end this with something

that I know we love to do.

Our way to early predictions are wildest predictions.

When you look at 2026,

who is your way too early prediction

to be the driver's champion next season?

And you know what, Nate?

I'm not going to make you go first.

I was about to go, but I appreciate it, Nicole.

Well, I'll happily go first

and I'll show you that you can still play it safe

despite going first.

So I'm going to buy in through all of the hype

around Mercedes and also say that I think,

because I don't think we've really touched on it

in this podcast as a season review,

how good George Russell's season was.

You know, I think if he'd been in that McLaren,

I think he probably would have been

in both of those drivers there.

Slightly controversial opinion, maybe,

but I think he was that good this year.

So I'm just going to lay it out there straight away,

George Russell, as the way to early prediction

for 2026, because who knows,

maybe we get to testing and the Mercedes

just blows up every time it goes out on track.

I'm not even going to let you go second, Nate.

And I just showed it because this is just proof.

I wrote this, it's backwards, but you can see it.

I wrote George like hours ago, same thing,

for all the same reasons, like, yeah.

That's all I got, George.

Yeah, I think it is difficult to surpass him, isn't it?

Just given what we are expecting from that team,

I was kind of, this is probably where I win my predictions.

I do think it's going to be George,

just to clarify, but my left field one was going to be,

was going to be Fernando Alonso.

Just, I want to totally buy into the fact that Newey built.

I don't need it.

Yeah, that Newey builds him an absolute rocket ship

and we just have a year of Fernando Alonso

just winning races and winning the title.

I think, you know, we talked about how great

the Max thing was this year.

That would be an absolute FIFA dream.

And I'd be, I'd like that more than Ferrari

winning a championship, just given how long

he's been in the sport for.

But also, you know, it would kind of be a great thing

for that story of that race team as well.

So, non-serious answers, Fernando Alonso.

The very safe, predictable one.

But for good reason is George Russell.

But yeah, I think it's telling, isn't it,

that we've all gone for a Mercedes-powered champion

because it does seem like that is going to be

the package that wins.

But I want to throw this to you guys.

I know no one thinks that the Rebel project

is going to be the one to beat.

But to me, this year proved that even if Red Bull

is still kind of, you know, they're competitive enough,

you just cannot write off Verstappen,

regardless of what that car looks like.

Obviously, if the car is genuinely awful,

then, you know, there's a limit that anyone can do.

I mean, look at Fernando Alonso as an example of that.

But if the car's even semi-competitive,

we know how good Verstappen is across the season.

You know, consistency next year might well be

the key thing in terms of if there's lots of random results.

So I think, you know, Max is still,

every season we go into, he's got to be

in the back of the mind of like, this guy could win it.

You know, this guy could.

If Max is in a car, if Max is in a team,

you cannot overlook him.

Period, end of discussion.

Yes, it's like when they say in the NFL,

you know, all roads go through Indianapolis

when you're the number one seed or whatever.

All roads go through Verstappen still in Formula One.

You know, they just have to, you know, the way,

and actually I think, you know,

teams have to prepare for that now.

Like you've got to be mentally ready to beat the,

you know, you've got to hear that Jules music

and see Chucky coming at you as Zach Brown said.

So not my pick, but I think it's worth saying

that Verstappen should be in that conversation at least.

Mm-hmm, don't disagree.

This is a little sad,

but I think that's where we're going to end it.

I love you both.

It's been so much fun.

This is not the end, obviously, but.

Yeah, we just don't know, do we?

We're not sure it's nice.

No, we don't.

Thank you for listening to Unlapped

every single week of the year.

Thanks for following along on the journey.

Thanks for following those guys on Instagram

and reading their stories.

They do brilliant work

and they will continue to do brilliant work

because like we will still cover Formula One.

It just might look a little different

in terms of what we do weekend and week out.

But guys, safe travels.

Thank you for your friendship.

Thank you for the insight.

Thank you for your brilliance and the laughs

and all of those things.

You are loved and you will be very, very missed.

So remember, like and subscribe.

You can find their content all the time

on the ESPN F1 YouTube channel.

Read their stuff, follow them on Instagram.

And if you're following us someplace else,

that's awesome as well.

Just give us up for the five star review.

This has been Unlapped.

Nate, Laurence, Nicole.

Peace out.

Peace.

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