MorrisF1

Hello, everyone. Welcome to a special, one-off Undercutters episode. No sound this time (just as well, I’ve excitingly developed another, hopefully minor, health problem that would’ve made recording it slightly unpleasant) but I did want to look back at my predictions and see just how wrong I got things. Driver Pairings Pre-season I predicted which of each driver pairing would end up the best in their particular team. My predictions were: Gasly to beat Doohan Alonso to beat Stroll Norris to beat Piastri Leclerc to beat Hamilton Russell to beat Antonelli Verstappen to beat Lawson Tsunoda to beat Hadjar Sainz to beat Albon Bearman to beat Ocon Hulkenberg to beat Bortoleto Whether to count Verstappen or Tsunoda as wins (they were ahead at the time of the Lawson-Tsunoda switch) is debatable, but I’m inclined not to. As for the other predictions, I got Sainz wrong. He took longer than I expected to get up to speed with Williams, although once he did then he did score more than Albon. Oth...

Well, now I wish I’d tipped Russell to top FP3. Ending the season with a couple of good predictions I didn’t tip is a bit irksome. What isn’t irksome is how incredibly close qualifying was, which led to a pretty good grid and the prospect of an intriguing final race, both in itself and for the title. Q1 said goodbye to some big names, with Hamilton, Albon, Hulkenberg, Gasly, and Colapinto going out. Both Hamilton and Hulkenberg’s team mates made it through to Q3 and the German looked fast enough to escapebut didn’t quite hook things up. In Q2 Bearman, Sainz, Lawson, Antonelli, and Stroll exited the stage. Bearman and Antonelli were surprises, as the Briton has looked very good lately (including this weekend) and Antonelli is also on a run of good results. Every driver out in Q2 had a time of 1:23:0. And so to Q3 which I felt had become a probable McLaren duel. Not for the first time this season, I was wrong. Verstappen put in two great laps for pole, and didn’t need the tow he had ...

We had some news between Qatar and now that Tsunoda will be out next year, with Lawson joined by Lindblad at Racing Bulls and Hadjar moving up/down to Red Bull in 2026. Given the second seat has chewed up plenty of good drivers it’s a shame, but not unexpected, to see Tsunoda tossed overboard like this. Quick note: there are three pre-season tests for 2026, the first being in late January, making the off-season unusually short this year. And so the title decider, which, thanks to a combination of disqualifications and sub-optimal strategy still sees Verstappen in with a chance of the title. Norris remains favourite, and Piastri lags them both but could theoretically still win. Gosh. In FP1 Piastri was not running as his car was (long-planned move) taken by Patricio O’Ward, and we had many similar changes in other teams. Norris was fastest, eight-thousandths ahead of Verstappen and 16-thousandths ahead of Leclerc. A tenth back was Antonelli, then Hulkenberg, Russell, Bortoleto, Bearm...