P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Mexico City GP qualifying

Episode Date: October 25, 2025

The Championship race takes another dramatic twist, as one McLaren driver will enjoy a *dream* grid in Mexico City tomorrow. Could this be the weekend it all changes?The Delusion Tour is only a few weeks away! We're heading to North America in November and there are still a few tickets available - click here to grab yours: tix.to/p1liveYou can listen to an extended version of every Race Review episode over on our Patreon! You'll also access to every P1 episode ad-free, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommyFollow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Or should we say Matt and depressed Tommy. Matt and pessimistic Tommy. Matt are not even half glass full Tommy. Championship is over. Should we just 2026? Just scrap the next four races after this one? Yeah, exactly.

It's over. The dreams. No, you might be surprised. I'm maybe not as pessimistic as many other people. maybe but obviously it's not it's not been the best session for the championship or is it well it is if you're alando norris fan for sure let's get into qualifying and begin with q1 where the bottom five were portoletto albon gasley stroll and colapinto alex alban has to be the main story here being knocked out in q1 when his teammate carlos signs finished in seventh

Of course, he has that five-place grid penalty from last time out when he collided with Kimmy Antonelli. But Alex Albon, question, let's get straight into it. Pion on Patreon member, AMG Piper. Has Albon met his match in having signs as a teammate? Signs seems to have Alex's number right now. Look, I don't think Alex Albon, as much as recent form, he has struggled, he's been knocked out in Q1 a couple of times now.

and his recent form is one to be slightly questioned for sure. I'm sure he's not very happy with it either. But when you look at his season as a whole, he's been one of the best drivers of the season. So to jump on a kind of Carlos is now better than Alex narrative, I don't think is fair after what Alex has put down this entire season and helped Williams be so high up the constructors' standings. They've got nosebleeds.

So for Alex Albon, yeah, it has been a difficult run of form for sure. But to say that he's met his match now, like Carlos is a brilliant driver, and he was always going to get a handle of that Williams and start delivering great performances. But Alex is no slouch either. And I'm giving him benefit of the doubt just purely because, yes, it's been, I'm not using recency bias here. Yeah, it's very easy to get on the recency bias bandwagon and think that albums now are washed and terrible because it's certainly not the case. he's had a absolutely amazing season. The fact that he is, you know, pretty close to seventh in the championship is an absolutely unbelievable performance.

And yeah, he's not doing as well as he had been doing at the start of the season, but he's not had terrible results. Of course, Austin, it was the track limits that caught him out that time. This one, obviously, again, a disappointing qualifying and, on how well science did. But I don't think it's, you know, complete concern. You look at kind of when Williams had that brilliant sprint performance. Alex was was there, thereabouts with science in that race as well and qualifying.

So I think it's an extreme look to kind of take the narrative that Alex is like really performing poorly at the moment because I don't think that's the case at all. He's just had a couple of bad races. Exactly. You look at his season so far and the first eight races, he scored points in seven of them. Then he went on a pretty poor three retirement spree. Then he scored four points out of the next five races and granted, yes, the last three races, he hasn't scored a point, barring obviously the point from the sprint. But in the main races, no points there. And it's going to be difficult from where he's starting. But he's closer to his teammate than perhaps qualifying would read. because of course Carlos is dropping down to 12th. Other drivers to talk about Bortoletto,

missing out, being out qualified again by Holkenberg, Tommy. You know, it's just after we sort of were saying that Gabriel Bortoletto, at least on the Saturdays, and to be fair, it looked like maybe he was getting the sort of advantage generally at Sauer. Holcomberg's fought back a little bit. He's woken up on a Saturday. He has. Yeah, Bortoleto's forms kind of dropped off.

Been disappointing, actually, since that amazing run in the middle of the season where he was very hyped up and everyone kind of realised, yeah, Borseleto's doing a much better job than people are giving him credit for. But since then, it's not really gone to plan and, yeah, started struggling in qualifying,

which was his strong point. But, yeah, knocked out again. And then the two Alpines, of course, doing Alpine things and Lance Stroll, actually doing Lance Stroll things as well in P-19. Let's head to Q2, where the bottom five in this session were Sonoda, Ocon, Holcombberg, Alonso and Lawson. But a driver I think we need to talk about there isn't in that bottom five because they were perhaps

counting their lucky stars ever so slightly was Oscar Piastri, who seemingly throughout the entirety of qualifying had different things going wrong with his car every time he turned a lap, whether it was DRS issues being reported, whether it was PU issues being reported. It just wasn't going particularly well for Oscar Piastri. It felt like every session he had like one lap. lap to put a time in because something had gone wrong with his car in another one. But for this one, he was seven hundredths of a second away from dropping out and not making it through to Q3. I know we were on the edge of our seats, Tommy, weren't we? When we were doing that on the

watch along? Yeah, it was absolutely insane to witness what was happening with Piastri. And, you know, it didn't get a huge amount better in Q3, but he did make it through. And yeah, it was a shocker for Piastri. I think as he came around that final corner and got a big moment, a big snap, he was already down, you know, for all F1 TV directions, brilliance in the last race. I think they missed the ball. Not going on board with Piastri was an insane decision when he was starting his lap. When we knew he was under pressure, he was in the drop zone. He is literally leading the World Championship. Let's have full screen Oscar Piastri and watch every inch of this lap because it was one

the most crucial parts of the entire championship battle so far. So to go to completely ignore it and then put it in a mini box for the last sector was an insane call. But yeah, he did just make it through. But my God, when he ran that final corner and got a big slide on, I thought that was it. As did I. And annoyingly, yes, we watched the entirety of Fernando Alonzo's lap and he was absolutely nowhere the entire way through.

maybe, just maybe, F1 direction. They decided to stick with Fernando Alonzo because of my sister's prediction for P3 in the race and they wanted to see if that would come through. But yeah, Piastri made it through and was of course very happy about that one. And honestly, from Q2, I'm a little bit surprised actually

that Ockon didn't make it through to Q3 as well, considering the Hasse pace, Oli Behrman pace in particular, they were looking very fast indeed. And I think the problem with Mexico City is because of how dusty the track can get and how much track evolution there is and also you have a split of the faster teams

and faster drivers trying as hard as they can to not go onto a fresh set of softs and just eke out the lap time from the same set and then you've got the Olli Bearman's of this world chucking on a fresh set going fastest in Q1 at one point. It's very hard to sort of keep on top of what's going on in Qali

and obviously if you have like companion apps like I do, it's great to see the tire life and things of different drivers. But yeah, no, it's brilliant. It's brilliant to watch. But it's hard to really, it's hard to know, like, exactly where the pace is when you get to sort of the dying embers of Q2 and then going into Q3,

because I would have definitely said after Q2 where Ocon, sorry, after Q1, even where Ockon was in the top five, wasn't it? He was. He was flying. Yeah, he was doing really well. I like it, the fact that, you know, the teams don't have that luxury that they can just easily breeze through. And as it's quite a short lap as well,

and it all gets a bit closer and it makes the team sweat a little bit more and they have to deliver so it's great to see but o'con slightly disappointing although actually when you look at it on the end he's only a couple of positions behind his teammate because of you know the the penalties and things that have actually occurred so it's not too bad for o'con in the end and hass ninth and eleventh is actually pretty good for them because they do seem to go through runs of races where they're quite poor in qualifying. We've seen that

a lot this year. This one a better track for him it seems so a chance to get some big points. Yeah, Ocon's best qualifying since Belgium so that's something to of course get slightly excited about and of course

he had a disqualification in Azerbaijan not that long ago from Kali. So much better for Ocon than it has been. Sonoda as well of course. really a massive headline is it finishing 11th in qualifying but I will say that and to his defence he was a couple

of tenths off Max for Stappen at the end of Q2 he gets knocked out Max goes through and I think Yuki with this new front wing with these upgrades that supposedly is supposed to get him closer to Max the form would suggest it absolutely did in qualifying so for Yuki sadly

no headlines but very secretly and quietly did a good job in the in the grand scheme of things? It's so weird because I can't remember the exact race. I want to say Hungary, and I'm sure everyone in the comments is already, you know, writing it. I want to say it was Hungary where Yuki Snowder was actually pretty close to Max and actually ended up going out in Q1.

And we were having this conversation of finally Yuki's actually got within a pretty decent margin of Max Verstappen, but it's at the race where the Red Bull wasn't performing. and you know as we will get onto uh later if we have to they were they were they were stroke max was you know struggling somewhat again you were right by the way 10th and a half 10th and a half yeah so so that was the a moment again where it looks really bad when you actually look at the qualifying positions and and where he is and and this is another one where you go oh you know yuki is out he's out in Q2 he must be thinking he must be thinking like, why can't I be one-tenth, two-tenths off max when he's there getting pole positions

and winning the race and stuff? Because obviously, if he does that, he's qualifying in the top three or four, but alas not. Alas not indeed. Let's head to Q3, where the top 10 were Norris, Leclair, Hamilton, Russell, Vastappan, Antonelli, Sines, Piastri, Hadjar and Berman. Let's get into the first question from Mr. Seiford, Dan. New championship lead. are incoming. You wouldn't bet against it, would you? We've had this conversation many times, so you do need to be a little bit wary

because qualifying in the race can change dramatically. I know it's been a year where it's been a qualifying championship, and a lot of time it is just a case of who does well in qualifying and not a huge amount changes into the race. But you can't, and this championship so far has thrown in a lot of curveballs that you can't just immediately jump on the fact that even me, the most pessimistic human being with Max Verstappen going, it's over, the championship's over, you know, Norris is going to win easily now. But that being

said, Lande Norris, not the fact that not only was he so dominant and looked so quick all weekend, it couldn't have gone any better for him to not only have Oscar Piastri absolutely nowhere, you know, his teammate who you know you wouldn't put him past uh put it past norris taking the championship lead after the race uh with with how piastri's going and we'll talk about him later and max has stappen not even you know getting p two or even p three you know if max had been p three you bet anything that he's slipped through in lando norese into term one and going to be a lot more difficult from from p5 and just add even more it more into the mix i do think the ferries will go for it into turn one

one tomorrow, but Leclair and Hamilton are very sensible and great wheel to wheel drivers. And even though they do have nothing to lose and want to win a race, you know, I don't, famous last words, but I don't think they're going to do anything stupid into 10-1. So it could not have gone any better for Lando today. It couldn't have, no, for sure. I, if we're looking at whether there will be a new championship leader after tomorrow's race, it is hard to look away and say no because all Lando needs to lead the championship

is Piastri to finish fifth or lower. He starts seventh. He has to dispatch of both Mercedes, which it's not as if, right? We're not looking at a scenario where Piastri made a mistake on his lap and is starting seventh. He is there on pure pace.

He is there on pure pace. So there is no guarantee. that he's going to make any progress moving forward. I don't think he's going to be under pressure from behind, but to move forward from seventh is going to be very difficult around a track that has generated many stinkers. Mexico City is not known as much as it's got a really long straight. It's not known for its overtaking because they get very little slipstream around here

because of the altitude. So for me, I genuinely, if lap one, turn one goes the way it should with Philando and he leads out of it, which the leader has, not led out of the last three years. So make of that what you will, Charlotte-Claude W. But back to Lando Norris, if he does lead out of term one or even lap one or the first few laps, I see him walking it.

I see him absolutely walking this. Everything that practice and qualifying has suggested is that Lando has the pace over everybody. I know Lando said after Quali that the Ferraris will be there. I'm expecting a race, this, that and the other. Nah. Lando should, in theory, walk it if he has the clean air and P1.

Even after FP1 as well, sorry, FP2, even though Max took the headline of being first, all the talk was that Lando's race pace was absolutely sensational. So it looked like it looked like it might be a case of maybe McLaren's sacrifice a little bit in qualifying, but have amazing race pace. And then it would be a bit more tricky for them. But the fact that Lando is so clear in qualifying and had this amazing race pace as well. Yeah, it's looking at very, very, very. very, very good indeed, and this is exactly why, you know, that we said that you just can't write

Landau off, because he is just this forgotten man in the championship. All the hype was around Max. Piastri, obviously, the championship leader with all that pressure on. And Landau, you know, this is, this is a huge, huge, huge opportunity for him to take the championship lead and some more. So Tommy, you got a little bit eager with this next question, because you already knew it was coming, and you've answered it, but I want to put my two, two pence in. as well. It's from P1Petri member Jess. Will Lando have an easier start tomorrow with it being Charles and Lewis behind? As you kind of said, Tommy, I think that yes, he will do. I don't think he could have actually painted a picture better in terms of a starting grid tomorrow.

Charlotte Clare, I know that everybody knows that I'm a fanboy of him and want to do very well, but I don't think it can be disputed that he's one of the best will-to-wheel races out there, respectful and yet he will push it but he won't usually push it over the limit. Lewis Hamilton very similar. Hamilton is not known for his audacious dive bombs. He'll just line up a move beautifully and get it done. So I don't think you could really have two drivers that are more built for not teaboning you into term one. Although, yeah, they're four fifth and sixth. I've said that now, haven't I? I've had that, I've said that now. Hopefully it doesn't happen. But on the flip side of that, if we're looking at maybe negatives for Lando with Charler Lewis behind, it's the fact that

yes, they are amazing at wheel to wheel racing, but they both have not won this year. Lewis of course won a sprint race. Ferrari have not won the entire year. So I guarantee, with the fact they are second and third, there may well be discussions in that briefing after qualifying of what can we do to beat Lando tomorrow and how do we work together because that's the only way that they would beat Lando is if Charlene Lewis somehow get ahead or one of them gets ahead, and they work together with strategy and things like that to try and beat Lando. So that is the one bad thing for Lando is that it's two of the same team directly behind him.

I do think Lando is going to walk it tomorrow because of how good is race paces and the fact that in second and third is a team that are obviously looking quick this weekend, but we've already seen a race where Charlotte Clare has got pole position and then had nothing to fight for because they're lifting. and coasting. So that being said, I don't think it's going to be a walk in the park into term one, one, two and three, because as you mentioned before, the Mexico, the leader hasn't led into term one for the last three seasons, was it, do you say? Last three seasons, it's a long run down to term one. Lando's a great driver, but starts and not his strong point.

I mean, it's always been a bit of an Achilles heel for him. Has it been of late, though? I don't feel like it's something that... I mean, it's starting... I think it's not been too bad, but I wouldn't... Lando only got beaten off the line in Austin because he wasn't on softs compared to Charles. Andy was on the dirty side of the grid. True, but we're looking at like,

equivalent of Alando good start is him holding position. I think that kind of says a lot that, you know, he's not his, like, strongest point for sure. So I would, yeah, for sure, when you look back, but I just can't see that being a thing of recent, to be honest with you. I can't remember a bad start. Okay. Well, I mean, I think these guys work out into term one tomorrow. Oh, yeah. No doubt.

For sure. Because, yeah, it does lead very nicely. You know, we'll talk about this man in a moment. But how Max is going to play it with his slipstream as well. You know, if he was third, I'd put. my house on my Sestappan either in the wall or first

into turn one but fifth is going to be a lot a lot more difficult it certainly is let's get on to him question from Jake Williams J.RW is Max now out of contention? Now you probably know what I'm going to say as the pessimistic match for Sappan fan

but it may surprise you because no he's not out of contention of course it is a disaster that he is fifth he had to be perfect, but I think his saving grace here is the fact that it's not Piastri in first. If he was Piastri in first and Piastri had this form that Norris had, you switched the McLaren form over and Piastri just did what Norris did. Yeah, I'd be saying it. It's basically over because he's fifth.

Piusi would be, you know, looking to win the race. You look at that and think that, you know, if Max does have to move forward, of course. It has to move forward. It's damage limitation because Norris is very, very likely to win the race. So Max does need to finish second or third. And because Norris, of course, is behind in the championship, Norris may well take the lead, but in theory Max could still be closer or about the same going into the next race. Now, of course, we're running out of races and the biggest disappointment, I think, if that was the case for myself and other Maxis, Fassapin fans, is Mexico should in theory be the track that Max is really good at,

and this is one of his stronger ones, because we're going to go to other tracks that I think will suit McLaren even more, like Yucatars and Abu Dhabi. So it's not looking great, and it's not the best thing, but I think the only kind of saving grace for Max is the fact that Piastri is the one with the points lead, and he's, obviously like falling off a cliff and it's Norris that's going to gain but Landau's form is looking very good indeed. It's wild to suggest that Max is out of contention after literally a qualifying session after he's been on a insane run of form and we've still got five races and two sprints to go. We haven't even had the race of

this weekend yet. For me Max needs to finish in the top three as you said Tommy. It's 40 points but it's 40 points to Piastrius. 26 to Landau. should Lando win the race, which we expect, and Max finishes third, the gap is 36 points. Lando potentially leads the championship, and then Max's all sights on Lando. To be honest with you,

I think Max is already sights on Lando after what we've seen from Oscar Piaastri in the last few races. Lando is the man to beat at the moment. But no, Max is not out of contention, but he does have a very difficult race ahead of him where he needs to get at least a position, I think, out of the first lap,

and then see how he can deal with the Ferraris. Maybe you'll have better race pace than them. These are all question marks at the moment. But it's not the ideal qualifying session if you're a Max Verstappan fan, which obviously I'm a Charles LeClauer fan. Tommy, you are, you know, Max through and through, and I've never, never thought about Max.

Until I threw on the Ferrari shirt when LeCleur went, Prevished not par. Yeah, that's wild from you, honestly. On the watch along, he chucks on the Ferrari top the minute Charles goes fastest because he thinks that Charles's going to bail out Max Verstappen. And he's going to win the race. Right, let's move on to Lando's teammate, shall we?

A question from underscore Z-Shark. What has happened to Piastri? What has happened? How many times have we got this question as well for basically every session for the last three or four weekends? Yeah, this scenario playing out is utterly bizarre. Oscar has gone from a driver that has, led the majority of this championship

has looked ice cold, has always been on pace with Lando if not quicker, throughout the majority of this championship. Of course, Lando has had his highs. To now watching a qualifying session where he scrapes through Q2 in a McLaren, which by the way

is not the third fastest car. F1, get rid of that graphic you put in during practice because that is a load of rubbish. I'm not saying McLaren are an absolute mile. absolute spaceship, but they are in my eyes the fastest car. Lando did a brilliant job today.

I'm not taking anything away from him, but to even suggest it's that their fast car is crazy. Oscar Piastri, six tenths of a second away from Lando. If it is nerves, it's got to go and it will go. The minute he's probably out of championship contention, you'd imagine that. But why now? It doesn't make any sense that he would,

with five races and two sprints to go, all of a sudden be like, oh no, I can't drive anymore. I'm really scared. That's not his nature. It's can't be nervous. It's not his nature. And I think something that was, again, really concerning from a piastry point of view,

and if you're a pastry fan and hearing him say this after Quali was that he didn't really notice anything massively wrong with the car. It's not like he's constantly fighting. It's a low grip track anyway, Mexico. And all drivers are slightly correcting. But Oscar seems quite clueless as to why. Andrea Stella, after Quali, were saying that Oscar essentially loses a small amount of time through every corner because he doesn't have the same confidence as Lando and that amounts to six tenths. That is crazy.

I just can't believe it. This falloff is something that I can't remember ever seeing. No, I don't. You know, I know there's been a lot of talk that we've dismissed and saying, you know, oh, sabotage because they want Lando to win, which is, you know, a team never sabotages their own car. But I can understand why Formula One fans just don't understand what is going on, because I don't understand what's going on watching it is, and even Piastri doesn't understand what's going on.

It's absolutely insane. I can never remember something like this where, you know, we've seen this happen before where drivers have led the World Championship and struggled over the line or lost at the last minute. But that is normally from car performance. You know, look at Max last year, how much he was struggling towards the end of the season. It was clearly car performance.

You know, other world champions in years gone by and championship battles. This is absolutely insane what's happening. The fact that Piastri was easily the best driver of the season at the summer break. And then he gets out of the summer break and dominates Zandvo. And basically with Landau's DNF, we're talking of, is it over already? and people saying, you know, he's got a hand on the championship already. And since then, since, since Monza, it's just going down, has been beaten by Norris consistently in every race.

Even Singapore, where he outqualified landa, he didn't have race pace. Austin, his race pace was poor. I think that is the scary thing. In a weird way, I know Baku was like a complete disaster. but if Piastri was qualifying just behind Norris occasionally beating him still and had the odd stinker like Baku it's not it's weirdly not as bad

because the situation he's found himself here is he doesn't understand what's going on and he is just simply slow he's been out qualified by a Williams and his teammate is on pole by a mile It's absolutely insane what's happening. It can't be like the championship jitters. He's obviously just got no confidence in the car and he's just not.

It's insane. It's insane. I can't believe we're in this situation. What's the most baffling thing for me is that in the first 16 races of this season, he is in the top three, 15 of those races. Only once was he outside the top three in qualifying and that was in Miami. That is such a consistent run of form to now look at 9th, 3rd, 6th and 8th as the last four. Singapore, of course, was a decent performance.

I am mystified. Mistified by this. Oscar was like, you know what, let's make this championship really interesting. We appreciate that, Oscar. Thank you as fans. You can turn up the wick again. Or McLaren, you can turn up the wicker, whoever it is. It's not going to be interesting if the form continues because he's losing,

his hand over fist at the moment the points that he's losing obviously like everyone was looking at the points he was losing to Max Stappen because he had a massive lead but it's the points he's losing to Lando you know it's not it's not out the question

that we could see Lando leave with the gap that Piastri had on him before this race that Norris has that lead on Piastri because it's looking so bad yeah well hopefully if Oscar he does score some points tomorrow, but yes, completely share the thoughts and feelings of a lot of Formula One fans out there that are just completely un-thally dumbfounded as to what's going on. I've seen the memes. I've seen that the meme of, you know, McLaren's sabotage, but you just can't prove it yet and things like that.

It's question marks, question marks, indeed. Right, moving away from Oscar P. Yastri, of course, we have very briefly celebrated the Carlos Sines performance, but I think it does deserve another shout-out for P-7, such a shame that you have. has that five-place grid penalty. And then Hadjar, we wondered at one point through Q1 that he might be getting pole position. And of course we didn't. That was the new soft tires. But a brilliant performance again for Hadjar bouncing back from a shocking Austin weekend. And then my go, Olly Behrman, chucking it in the top 10 again. We love to see it.

And once again, the rookies shining. Yeah, they were. Because I think Antonelli's really improved his form as well. He was a 10th off Russell. He was, yeah. So Anthony, great job. Hadjar and Berman. Yeah, really, really impressive from those guys. And yeah, what a field of rookie has been this year. And I think they're all delivering for sure. They are indeed. And let's hope tomorrow the Mexico City Grand Prix delivers for us because we are absolutely owed one. So come on. I mean, it's all worth it for term one because turn one is going to be the spiciest thing, how everyone plays it.

isn't it? It's always, it's such a difficult turn one. It's similar to Austin in a way that like, if you could design a turn one for absolute carnage, you know, wide as anything into a 90 degree. 90 degree, 90 degree again. Yeah.

And grass. No run off. Yeah, it's going to be definitely worth watching. After that, sort of turn three lap one, just come and join us on the watch long. You don't need to watch the rest of the race. We'll keep you up to date.

Tommy, what are your final thoughts, please? Final thoughts? You know, despite me being pessimistic. I'm optimistic for the race, looking forward to it big time. And yeah, that term one is going to be a spicy one. Hell yeah. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in as always. And we will see you tomorrow live on Twitch and YouTube.

Remember, P1 Live Delusion Tour tickets are available. We are heading to North America in just over. week's time. I cannot wait to go. And we will see you there. See you tomorrow. Lots of love. Bye.

Goodbye. My chore is to pet that dog. If you have a dog or a cat, go pet that, pet the dog or the cat. It's not an euphemism. No, no. You go and pet that.

I can't stay. No, that's got a go. That's got to go. That was close. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.