F1 2025 Belgian GP Review and Hungarian GP Preview (Undercutters Ep30 transcript)
Hello, everyone. This is the 30th Undercutters podcast, looking back at Belgium and ahead to Hungary. I’m Morris, and you can find me on Twitter or BlueSky at MorrisF1, or read the transcript at morrisf1.blogspot.com
Hungary saw Piastri’s first win last year, but can the Aussie repeat the feat? Can anyone stop McLaren dominating the whole season? And will Verstappen and Alonso be as annoyed as they were last year?
The points scorers were: Verstappen, Piastri, Norris, Leclerc, Ocon, Sainz, Bearman, and Hadjar.
Q2 was a session of what-ifs. Haas had both drivers into the final part of sprint qualifying, but Ocon and Bearman qualified 11th and 12th for the Grand Prix. Bearman had a poor start to his lap, and I think he had a great shot of making Q3 on pure pace. Also out were Gasly, who was unable to reproduce his sprint qualifying excellence, and Hulkenberg and Sainz, both of whom had team mates who made it to Q3.
Q3 was looking like a typical McLaren-Verstappen battle. I expected Piastri to take pole but it was Norris who claimed the top slot on the grid, leading Piastri in a McLaren front row. Leclerc put in a great lap to take 3rd ahead of Verstappen. Albon had a phenomenal 5th, and it’s a great return to form for him after some more difficult races. Williams, I believe, have brought an extra upgrade having been surprised by just how fierce the competition has become, particularly from Hulkenberg.
Russell’s 6th might not seem great but the Mercedes wasn’t looking fantastic this weekend so it’s not bad. Tsunoda’s 7th is a solid result, just three places behind Verstappen. Maybe having his old team principal in charge at Red Bull is helping out a bit. Hadjar and Lawson qualified 8th and 9th, a good double result for Racing Bull, with Bortoleto in 10th.
Leclerc, meanwhile, rapidly got dropped by the McLarens and was hassled a lot by a faster Verstappen. But good defensive driving enabled him to retain his place and when Verstappen fell back out of DRS that was pretty much that.
A major moment was the decision of when to switch to dry tyres, something Ferrari and Hamilton got exactly right. He’d already been doing better than anyone else at carving through the field, and the strategy helped too. Haas, by contrast, got it wrong, putting Bearman out of the points and Ocon dead last at one stage.
At the front, McLaren had enough of an advantage over Leclerc they didn’t need to stress. They had an interesting split strategy. Norris became the only man on hard tyres in P2 while Piastri had the medium on, as did every other driver. Norris could make it to the end without stopping again, but could Piastri?
Some other drivers did have to make two stops. Hulkenberg had to first let Bortoleto past and then slapped on some fresh medium tyres. But for no-one did this work very well.
Hamilton had made good progress then hit the brick wall of a fast Williams in the hands of Albon. They were 6th and 7th, while Gasly was in 10th, leading a bit of a train, with Tsunoda and Bearman behind him for lap after lap. Eventually, Bearman passed Tsunoda and got within a whisker of Gasly, but he only had a single lap to try and pass the Frenchman and it wasn’t enough.
At the sharp end, Norris was clearly faster than Piastri, but the Aussie had benefited from boxing first and had a nice cushion. Norris made too many errors while chasing his title rival and in the end finished just over 3s behind. Leclerc had a slightly lonely race, only occasionally being annoyed by Verstappen but otherwise cruising to yet another podium.
Verstappen’s 4th is where he started as well as finished. I’m mildly surprised he was unable to get past Leclerc, but there we have it.
Another man rarely seen on the coverage was Russell. He executed one of the few passes in the points to get ahead of Albon, and never seemed troubled in 5th. Albon had a great qualifying and good race, dropping just one place and staying ahead of Hamilton to earn Williams some much needed points in a very tight battle.
Hamilton’s 7th is not bad at all for a man who started in the pit lane. Precious few drivers made substantial gains and going from 18th to 7th is rather good, and makes up somewhat for dodgy qualifying. Lawson was 8th, backing up a good qualifying with solid race, while Bortoleto did much the same and was the better Sauber driver this weekend. Gasly held on for 10th and the final point.
I do want to praise Gasly, though. The Alpine is the worst car on the grid but he defended ably for almost the entire race to fend off Tsunoda and Bearman. It was impressive stuff, and a reminder Gasly’s one of the top drivers in the midfield.
Haas also lost through the pit stops. Had Bearman been ahead of Gasly he would’ve driven away easily, but instead he ended up in an awful situation. Because Tsunoda was ahead but unable to pass Gasly, Bearman was chasing a man who also had DRS, negating that advantage.
The race also marked the end of Hulkenberg’s scoring streak, and he cooked his tyres while Bortoleto kept them alive. In the previous four races, Hulkenberg had scored 31 points, but none in Belgium.
After all that, Piastri extends his title advantage over Norris to 16 points. If he had lost, and that could easily have happened, it would’ve been cut to just 2. After a couple of races of losing momentum to Norris, this is a welcome shift for Piastri.
Weirdly, I got the entire podium of Piastri, Norris, and Leclerc correct, which I think is the first time that’s happened. To be fair, backing the McLarens isn’t exactly heroic, but a decent call on Leclerc.
Midfield points were off, though, I’d backed Hulkenberg and Alonso and they ended up 12th and 17th.
My prediction of a Haas to make Q3 was wrong but incredibly close. Ocon was two-hundredths off and Bearman right behind him, with both making the end of qualifying in the sprint. Bit unlucky that didn’t come off.
Belgium and Hungary have been traditionally paired together for a little while, and come right before the summer break. But the two tracks are rather different.
Passing can be very tricky, although turns 1 and 2 are often the places people attempt it as you can try slightly different lines. A substantial pace advantage is needed, though. In 2021 Ocon got his maiden win here thanks partly to team mate Alonso defending to hold up faster cars.
There are two DRS zones, a longer one along the starting straight and a small one from turn 1 to turn 2. But there’s a single DRS detection point so if you pass on the straight that’ll help you stay ahead.
Think of high downforce and somewhere like Monaco or Singapore springs to mind, but despite looking like a more traditional circuit Hungary also is at the top end of downforce requirements according to Pirelli’s stats. This combines with above average traction and track evolution, while the asphalt offers less grip and abrasion than average. Teams like Alpine, which have a decent car if you ignore the power deficit, will do better than average and straight line speed machines like Williams may have a rougher than usual weekend.
You may well remember Hungary as a comedy of errors by McLaren, who did their best to create unnecessary internal drama. Norris had a trademark bad start, losing out first to Piastri and then Verstappen, who had gone off-track. Norris also tumbled behind Hamilton before rapidly retaking the place from him. Further back, Leclerc had gotten ahead of Sainz.
In the first of a string of angry radio messages, Verstappen reluctantly agreed to hand the place back to Norris. Piastri, meanwhile, was stretching his legs at the front and looking very good. Norris was a couple of seconds ahead of Verstappen. To fend off the Dutchman, McLaren boxed Norris first to stay ahead, and then Piastri, who retained the effective lead and was P4 on the road.
Norris was getting closer to Piastri, but wasn’t quite in DRS.
Further back, Verstappen was fighting Hamilton and was less than delighted to be undercut.
Despite the narrow gap, McLaren pitted Norris first again, which meant he undercut Piastri for the lead. The Aussie was only called in two laps after Norris. The British driver was instructed to hand the place back which he did, after quite some time and a lot of radio pleading from the team.
Meanwhile, Verstappen’s speed in 5th was causing some concern to his race engineer and prompted some more radio frustration from the Dutch driver.
Piastri won his first race in Hungary, leading Norris in a dominant McLaren 1-2 that the team’s poor strategy calls somehow made awkward. Hamilton did very well to join them on the podium, around 5s ahead of Leclerc. Verstappen had to make do with 5th, a couple of seconds ahead of Sainz. Perez, Russell, Tsunoda, and Stroll also scored, with a grumpy Alonso in 11th.
As far as midfield points go, I think Hadjar’s going to gobble up some more points. Racing Bulls had a slightly dry spell after Spain but he’s a good driver and I think he’ll returning to scoring ways. I’m also backing Gasly. The Alpine is not a good car but the Frenchman is a very good driver and has regularly dragged it into Q3. If he can do that here he stands a solid chance of being able to convert that into points.
My extra prediction this time is perhaps unexpected: I’m predicting Hulkenberg will not score. My reasoning is pretty straightforward: while his races have been fantastic recently, excepting Belgium, his qualifying has often seem him out in Q1. The Hungaroring is notoriously difficult for overtaking thanks to dirty air being horrendous here and that’s been a big problem through 2025 so far. So, my prediction is that Hulkenberg will qualify poorly and be unable to make up ground due to Hungary being very tricky in that regard.
As an aside, I wrote the Hulkenberg prediction before the Belgian Grand Prix.
After the Horner departure, the BBC has reported Verstappen saying the team principal leaving doesn’t affect his decision regarding his own future. Technically, he has a contract until 2028 with Red Bull but it’s an open secret Mercedes are keen to get Verstappen onboard.
My own suspicion remains that Verstappen will stay on with Red Bull at least for 2026, to see how the teams stack up in a new regulation era. That way, he can make a more informed decision about whether to stay and, if not, where to go.
It’s also worth saying that lots of drivers are unhappy with the new regulations. There are fears it’ll involve too much micromanagement of power deployment from the drivers, and that electrical energy could run out at certain circuits. Couple that with it being a so-called ‘engine formula’ and I think it’s very likely we’ll see rapid calls to at least modify the regulations if not overhaul them completely after 2026.
Thank you all for listening. If you enjoy the podcast please leave a positive rating wherever you listen, and tell your friends to give it a listen. Next time, we’ll be looking back at how Hungary went.
Podbean
Apple
Spotify
Amazon
Hungary saw Piastri’s first win last year, but can the Aussie repeat the feat? Can anyone stop McLaren dominating the whole season? And will Verstappen and Alonso be as annoyed as they were last year?
Belgian Sprint 00m39s
The sprint in Belgium was not the most exciting of things. Verstappen and Leclerc passed Piastri and Norris respectively. Norris was able to pass the Ferrari then close up on Verstappen and Piastri, but the Aussie was not able to reclaim the lead despite sitting in DRS range of Verstappen all race long. Despite a lot of drivers being consistently in DRS there was not much in the way of passing.The points scorers were: Verstappen, Piastri, Norris, Leclerc, Ocon, Sainz, Bearman, and Hadjar.
Belgian Grand Prix Qualifying 1m20s
Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix was another bad session for Hamilton. It seemed he’d made it through Q1 easily only for his lap to be deleted for violating track limits. Antonelli also failed to escape the first session, as did Colapinto and both Aston Martins.Q2 was a session of what-ifs. Haas had both drivers into the final part of sprint qualifying, but Ocon and Bearman qualified 11th and 12th for the Grand Prix. Bearman had a poor start to his lap, and I think he had a great shot of making Q3 on pure pace. Also out were Gasly, who was unable to reproduce his sprint qualifying excellence, and Hulkenberg and Sainz, both of whom had team mates who made it to Q3.
Q3 was looking like a typical McLaren-Verstappen battle. I expected Piastri to take pole but it was Norris who claimed the top slot on the grid, leading Piastri in a McLaren front row. Leclerc put in a great lap to take 3rd ahead of Verstappen. Albon had a phenomenal 5th, and it’s a great return to form for him after some more difficult races. Williams, I believe, have brought an extra upgrade having been surprised by just how fierce the competition has become, particularly from Hulkenberg.
Russell’s 6th might not seem great but the Mercedes wasn’t looking fantastic this weekend so it’s not bad. Tsunoda’s 7th is a solid result, just three places behind Verstappen. Maybe having his old team principal in charge at Red Bull is helping out a bit. Hadjar and Lawson qualified 8th and 9th, a good double result for Racing Bull, with Bortoleto in 10th.
Spa Race Review 3m15s
Thundery showers had been forecast, and in the event we had so much rain the start was delayed by over an hour, which was very tedious. However, it was handy for drivers who opted to start from the pit lane, including Hamilton, Alonso, Sainz, and Antonelli. The start was a few laps trundling around behind the safety car, with everyone on inters, followed by a rolling start. Despite this, Piastri was still able to make use of the slipstream to rapidly get ahead of Norris. Although he tried, the British driver was unable to wrest the lead back.Leclerc, meanwhile, rapidly got dropped by the McLarens and was hassled a lot by a faster Verstappen. But good defensive driving enabled him to retain his place and when Verstappen fell back out of DRS that was pretty much that.
A major moment was the decision of when to switch to dry tyres, something Ferrari and Hamilton got exactly right. He’d already been doing better than anyone else at carving through the field, and the strategy helped too. Haas, by contrast, got it wrong, putting Bearman out of the points and Ocon dead last at one stage.
At the front, McLaren had enough of an advantage over Leclerc they didn’t need to stress. They had an interesting split strategy. Norris became the only man on hard tyres in P2 while Piastri had the medium on, as did every other driver. Norris could make it to the end without stopping again, but could Piastri?
Some other drivers did have to make two stops. Hulkenberg had to first let Bortoleto past and then slapped on some fresh medium tyres. But for no-one did this work very well.
Hamilton had made good progress then hit the brick wall of a fast Williams in the hands of Albon. They were 6th and 7th, while Gasly was in 10th, leading a bit of a train, with Tsunoda and Bearman behind him for lap after lap. Eventually, Bearman passed Tsunoda and got within a whisker of Gasly, but he only had a single lap to try and pass the Frenchman and it wasn’t enough.
At the sharp end, Norris was clearly faster than Piastri, but the Aussie had benefited from boxing first and had a nice cushion. Norris made too many errors while chasing his title rival and in the end finished just over 3s behind. Leclerc had a slightly lonely race, only occasionally being annoyed by Verstappen but otherwise cruising to yet another podium.
Verstappen’s 4th is where he started as well as finished. I’m mildly surprised he was unable to get past Leclerc, but there we have it.
Another man rarely seen on the coverage was Russell. He executed one of the few passes in the points to get ahead of Albon, and never seemed troubled in 5th. Albon had a great qualifying and good race, dropping just one place and staying ahead of Hamilton to earn Williams some much needed points in a very tight battle.
Hamilton’s 7th is not bad at all for a man who started in the pit lane. Precious few drivers made substantial gains and going from 18th to 7th is rather good, and makes up somewhat for dodgy qualifying. Lawson was 8th, backing up a good qualifying with solid race, while Bortoleto did much the same and was the better Sauber driver this weekend. Gasly held on for 10th and the final point.
Highlights and Lowlights 6m57s
It’s fair to say the race wasn’t exactly a classic, from the delayed start to difficulty passing. Had Norris closed up on Piastri it might have been different, but he didn’t, so it wasn’t.I do want to praise Gasly, though. The Alpine is the worst car on the grid but he defended ably for almost the entire race to fend off Tsunoda and Bearman. It was impressive stuff, and a reminder Gasly’s one of the top drivers in the midfield.
Haas also lost through the pit stops. Had Bearman been ahead of Gasly he would’ve driven away easily, but instead he ended up in an awful situation. Because Tsunoda was ahead but unable to pass Gasly, Bearman was chasing a man who also had DRS, negating that advantage.
The race also marked the end of Hulkenberg’s scoring streak, and he cooked his tyres while Bortoleto kept them alive. In the previous four races, Hulkenberg had scored 31 points, but none in Belgium.
After all that, Piastri extends his title advantage over Norris to 16 points. If he had lost, and that could easily have happened, it would’ve been cut to just 2. After a couple of races of losing momentum to Norris, this is a welcome shift for Piastri.
Belgian Grand Prix Predictions Assessment 8m15s
When it comes to my predictions for the Belgian Grand Prix, I did get Verstappen winning the sprint right. I imagined he’d get pole then fend off the faster McLarens, but instead he snatched the lead on lap 1 and won from there.Weirdly, I got the entire podium of Piastri, Norris, and Leclerc correct, which I think is the first time that’s happened. To be fair, backing the McLarens isn’t exactly heroic, but a decent call on Leclerc.
Midfield points were off, though, I’d backed Hulkenberg and Alonso and they ended up 12th and 17th.
My prediction of a Haas to make Q3 was wrong but incredibly close. Ocon was two-hundredths off and Bearman right behind him, with both making the end of qualifying in the sprint. Bit unlucky that didn’t come off.
Belgium and Hungary have been traditionally paired together for a little while, and come right before the summer break. But the two tracks are rather different.
Quick Look at the Hungaroring 9m16s
The Hungarian Grand Prix is hosted at the Hungaroring, which is 4.4km long and has 70 laps in a race. From pole to the first braking point at turn 1 is 476m, which is long enough to get severely mugged if you have a bad start. It’s also one of the tracks least likely to see a safety car. This is because dirty air is very bad which increases gaps between the cars, and there’s a lot of run-off.Passing can be very tricky, although turns 1 and 2 are often the places people attempt it as you can try slightly different lines. A substantial pace advantage is needed, though. In 2021 Ocon got his maiden win here thanks partly to team mate Alonso defending to hold up faster cars.
There are two DRS zones, a longer one along the starting straight and a small one from turn 1 to turn 2. But there’s a single DRS detection point so if you pass on the straight that’ll help you stay ahead.
Think of high downforce and somewhere like Monaco or Singapore springs to mind, but despite looking like a more traditional circuit Hungary also is at the top end of downforce requirements according to Pirelli’s stats. This combines with above average traction and track evolution, while the asphalt offers less grip and abrasion than average. Teams like Alpine, which have a decent car if you ignore the power deficit, will do better than average and straight line speed machines like Williams may have a rougher than usual weekend.
The Last Hungarian Grand Prix 10m57s
The 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix had a McLaren front row, Norris leading Piastri. Behind them was Verstappen, with half a tenth covering the top three’s qualifying time. Sainz was 4th on the grid, ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc.You may well remember Hungary as a comedy of errors by McLaren, who did their best to create unnecessary internal drama. Norris had a trademark bad start, losing out first to Piastri and then Verstappen, who had gone off-track. Norris also tumbled behind Hamilton before rapidly retaking the place from him. Further back, Leclerc had gotten ahead of Sainz.
In the first of a string of angry radio messages, Verstappen reluctantly agreed to hand the place back to Norris. Piastri, meanwhile, was stretching his legs at the front and looking very good. Norris was a couple of seconds ahead of Verstappen. To fend off the Dutchman, McLaren boxed Norris first to stay ahead, and then Piastri, who retained the effective lead and was P4 on the road.
Norris was getting closer to Piastri, but wasn’t quite in DRS.
Further back, Verstappen was fighting Hamilton and was less than delighted to be undercut.
Despite the narrow gap, McLaren pitted Norris first again, which meant he undercut Piastri for the lead. The Aussie was only called in two laps after Norris. The British driver was instructed to hand the place back which he did, after quite some time and a lot of radio pleading from the team.
Meanwhile, Verstappen’s speed in 5th was causing some concern to his race engineer and prompted some more radio frustration from the Dutch driver.
Piastri won his first race in Hungary, leading Norris in a dominant McLaren 1-2 that the team’s poor strategy calls somehow made awkward. Hamilton did very well to join them on the podium, around 5s ahead of Leclerc. Verstappen had to make do with 5th, a couple of seconds ahead of Sainz. Perez, Russell, Tsunoda, and Stroll also scored, with a grumpy Alonso in 11th.
Predictions for Hungary 13m06s
I think Norris is going to claim the pole position here. His earlier jitters seem behind him, and it’s been very close lately, but I think he’s got the speed for pole. Passing being rough means I think he’s going to get the win, with Piastri right behind him. Third is hard to call but I’m going to go for Verstappen. He’s been qualifying very well but his pace is likely to be behind the McLarens so a pit stop pass may well be possible even if he outqualifies them.As far as midfield points go, I think Hadjar’s going to gobble up some more points. Racing Bulls had a slightly dry spell after Spain but he’s a good driver and I think he’ll returning to scoring ways. I’m also backing Gasly. The Alpine is not a good car but the Frenchman is a very good driver and has regularly dragged it into Q3. If he can do that here he stands a solid chance of being able to convert that into points.
My extra prediction this time is perhaps unexpected: I’m predicting Hulkenberg will not score. My reasoning is pretty straightforward: while his races have been fantastic recently, excepting Belgium, his qualifying has often seem him out in Q1. The Hungaroring is notoriously difficult for overtaking thanks to dirty air being horrendous here and that’s been a big problem through 2025 so far. So, my prediction is that Hulkenberg will qualify poorly and be unable to make up ground due to Hungary being very tricky in that regard.
As an aside, I wrote the Hulkenberg prediction before the Belgian Grand Prix.
F1 News 14m46s
F1 news.After the Horner departure, the BBC has reported Verstappen saying the team principal leaving doesn’t affect his decision regarding his own future. Technically, he has a contract until 2028 with Red Bull but it’s an open secret Mercedes are keen to get Verstappen onboard.
My own suspicion remains that Verstappen will stay on with Red Bull at least for 2026, to see how the teams stack up in a new regulation era. That way, he can make a more informed decision about whether to stay and, if not, where to go.
It’s also worth saying that lots of drivers are unhappy with the new regulations. There are fears it’ll involve too much micromanagement of power deployment from the drivers, and that electrical energy could run out at certain circuits. Couple that with it being a so-called ‘engine formula’ and I think it’s very likely we’ll see rapid calls to at least modify the regulations if not overhaul them completely after 2026.
Thank you all for listening. If you enjoy the podcast please leave a positive rating wherever you listen, and tell your friends to give it a listen. Next time, we’ll be looking back at how Hungary went.
Podbean
Apple
Spotify
Amazon
Comments
Post a Comment