P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to United States GP sprint race

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

There was only one way today's sprint could go to keep Max Verstappen's title hopes alive - and that is EXACTLY what happened! Join us as we react to one of the biggest moments of the season!The Delusion Tour is only a few weeks away! We're heading to North America in a few weeks 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 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, sprint edition. We were like, oh, we're out in Austin. I don't know if we do a sprint podcast. Depends if something interesting happens. Oh my God, they've crashed, Tommy. I can't. I actually can't believe it. Basically, one of the only scenarios we'd have basically made sure there's no way we're missing doing a sprint pod

and we're not just kind of putting it into the qualifying one was pretty much really Max winning in the McLaren's crashing. and well. Well, they did. Turn 1. We just got to talk about it. We're not going to mess around. We're not going to be allowed.

Oh, it's fair. It's great to be in Austin. I will say that first and foremost. We weren't at the track today because we're doing some really cool things with AT&T. You'll see an additional podcast episode about that. So look forward to that. But as for term 1, lap 1, my goodness gracious me,

it is Austin Cota, turn 1, down to a T. What happened? Because it's such a unique term 1. I actually really love it as a core. You know, the elevation change. It's difficult on the brakes. And there's so many different lines you can take into that corner, especially on the first lap. So we had, of course, Holkenberg up in fourth place. We're wondering, can he score some awesome points? Can he even maybe sneak a sprint podium if he gets into a good position? No. What he can do is hit Oscar Piastri into Lando Norris with Alonzo, of course, on his inside as well. And just absolute carnage unfolded. And I firstly want to say, I don't think anyone did deserve a penalty. I think it was very much a racing incident, although you can apportion percentages of blame, I think. Yeah, I think Holkenberg deserves the most blame, but I still would put it as a racing incident. It is the nature of Turn 1 at Cota, because it's such a

bottleneck, you know, it's such a wide entry to the corner, and then just completely bottlenecks. Even when there's not a crash at Turn 1, you always see people bailing onto the runoff. It's so rare. could probably argue that it's never even happened where everyone's escaped turn one without going wide because it's just it's just like funn up they all funnel in basically and yeah holcomburg is the most to blame but i also think you know that that you had alonzo on the inside piastri is taking i wouldn't say like an enormous risk but it is certainly a risk to he wasn't thinking about anything anyone behind him he was he had his eyes on lando didn't he and just went for that move. He did. I think that I'm not blaming Oscar in the slightest for what happened,

but I will say that I think he took a little bit of a risk, full well knowing that we've seen that kind of incident happen so many times. And I feel like Oscar just very much focused on Lando, who had gone a little bit deep and the up and under was on, but perhaps when a little bit tunnel vision into just making sure he would get through on Lando and not thinking about what was potentially going on behind. A wider line, of course, with hindsight would have kept him in the race. And my goodness gracious me, for his championship, he is so fortunate to have actually taken Lando with him, as much as it's obviously a sad thing to think about that Lando got tagged and was taken out as well. For Oscar's championship, it's huge. Because if Lando had stayed

in that race, finished second, maybe even beat Max in the race, that's a seven, eight-point swing from a 22-point deficit. So that didn't happen, of course. Both McLaren's out. I genuinely thought I was just living a dream of yours. I thought I was just in your head. This wasn't real. and that we would end up seeing the actual lap one term one that we were all expecting, which was not that. I was already to have a rant that the sprint is kind of pointless, and Max would have gained two points, and it's not enough. And, you know, he's won the race, but does it really matter?

Because it's not a big point swing. But for it to be eight and zero to, you know, both McLaren's, does swing it, you know, it's a big points gap. It's not enormous, but it's still a lot. and obviously like more than if he won the race. You mean a game, a big points game. Yeah.

Yeah. It's still a big points gap. It is. But it's less than it was. But it's the fine margins of this championship and those little moments. Because I think had Oscar been taken out, Lando, you know, takes a huge chunk out of, of Oscar's leads, you know, almost, you know, a third of it going and just evaporated like that.

But instead, you know, And this is a wild theory that I had that I was thinking during the race, is that Piastri actually colliding with Lando is weirdly not the worst thing for him. Because I think now the pressure is ramped so much on McLaren that Max is joining this fight and they are going to get so nervous. And I know there's talk of McLaren will always let them race and stuff. But they have said themselves, if Max gains too much, we will back someone. So for Oscar, it could almost not, it's a weird thing to say, but it could almost be not a bad thing

because if Max is going to start to attack and get closer and closer, McLaren might have to back a driver, and he's the one that's ahead. It's an interesting theory. I think a lot of people who are on the side of McLaren favoring Lando and want Lando to win the championship will say, no chance, they will just take their risk and go for it. And I think I'm on that side of the argument where 22 points is not a big enough gap to go, Landau, sorry, mate, you can't win your first world championship. We have to back Oscar here for the driver's championship.

No chance. I cannot see that happening in the slightest. However, if we come out of Austin and Oscar finishes first, Lando finishes third, or, you know, there's a big point swing between the two McLaren drivers in Oscar's favor, then perhaps that conversation has to happen. But 22 points is not a big enough margin. I think it needs to be near on 40 to then have. have to then back Oscar. It's just, it is such a tough decision, of course, because McLaren

always about it's fair, the drivers can race as long as it's, you know. But it's also really tough because you don't know how it's going to go. Like one thing that I'm thinking about now is that at the end of 2010, Mark Weber had quite a sizable championship lead and the team could have easy, a Red Bull could have easily said, right, Sebastian Vettel, you need to let Mark get all the points that there was talk of, you know, they should completely favour him. And if they, and, you know, imagine if they hadn't done, because of course, Mark Weber and Alonzo missed out on points and Sebastian Vettel ended up taking the world championship. So it's not just a case of like, you know, completely back Oscar because, yeah, like Max, Max is coming. He certainly is.

Question from people on Patreon member, Charlotte 90. Playing devil's advocates, Lando was aggressive in Singapore, but hit his teammate. Oscar attempted an aggressive cutback at term one, hit Hulk, which caused him to take out his teammate. Will he now face repercussions from the team? I think the way that's phrased is that Oscar hit Hulk, whereas I think it's the other way around where Hulk absolutely hit Piastri, which then caused the crash into Lando. I know that we're joking about this repercussion stuff, but at the same time, I think it's wise to be fair about who was at fault here. Oscar was an absolute passenger because of the contact. And I know I've already said that I think Oscar could have maybe played it slightly

differently just to be a bit safer as the championship leader, but it's by no way his faults or anything like that for hitting. You can't say it's the same thing because Lando was on his own in that situation. You know, it was a situation where, yeah, Singapore, Lando made the contact with Oscar after hitting Max. But here, you know, it was like the nature. of turn one so it's not like it's a clear cut oscar's um you know wiped out lando and it's his fault and he's took this enormous risk um he has taken risks he's he's not completely blameless

but it's not it's not like it's this you know oh my word it's his fault now this this has happened yeah the only thing i'm saying there is that oscar took the risk of being hit and he was the fact that the sort of the whole equation ended in him hitting lando that part is just completely luck and... It's just coincidence. Yeah, it's coincidence. So, no, I don't think so. Or it's fair,

then Max Verstappen's going to win the World Championship. Don't you start? I believe in Max Verstappen from the get-go. You, oh, 4%, 5%? What percent are you now? Seven. Seven, all right. You were five on the stream,

so you've already changed the seven. You are literally changing like the weather does. But yeah, the whole repercussions thing. If McLaren want to throw the driver's championship, they'll give Oscar repercussions. I think that's the way. Like, they need to just throw that in the bin and just think, right, actually, Max is genuinely in with a shot of the title now. Can we lock in and stop talking about silly things like repercussions?

Because it is boring, I think. Well, for me, it's so dull. And they need to focus on the big things. Next one, P1PITR. Remember, Matthew Cole 04. How big is that going to be for Max Verstappen's championship push? Yeah, I mean, it's massive right now because he's got that eight-point swing. I was all here ready to talk about how the championship

and how the sprint race doesn't really mean a lot because you can't gain a lot on your rivals because I thought, you know, had it been a normal race, we'd have seen the McLaren's second and third maybe, and it would only been a couple of points and you kind of think, well, that's not really made a huge amount of difference. The main thing here is we're going into another qualifying session in a few hours, which is insane,

and I've said many times I don't like, that that's the case. And now it's almost going to be more important to see if Max can deliver another pole position and then because the race is where the big points are handed out. So it is huge, but also we're going to go into a qualifying session and we almost like need to know if he's going to put himself in a great position for the race to do it again and take more points off McClara. So it's massive for Max's championship push in my opinion just purely because it's a free eight

points. this is how I see it, it's free, because these sprints in my head are like additional tiny little bonuses that can have a one or two point swing, as you said, Tommy Lackens. You said yes today, you actually, it's in the social clip we posted that way you said like, because I was talking about, oh, he needs more races and you said there's three sprints, that's 24 points. That's eight of them. Yeah, exactly.

And you would expect maybe three or four or something like that. Max is obviously very good at sprints. So it's big, but we also have to remember that every single competitive session is massive for Max from now to the end of the season. Like, yes, he is 55 points behind, which feels at the closest he's been for a very long time, but also one swing, as you say, like, if he finishes fourth, he finishes fifth, then all of a sudden we're saying championship off again. Like, he has to eat into them every single session, which puts so much pressure on him,

but Max doesn't feel it. Like, he genuinely doesn't feel the pressure. He's been in this position so many times. So it's massive in this particular moment. It's the best he could have hoped for. But we have to, I say, It's making me so nervous. Honestly, I was a wreck during that race.

Yeah. It was, because I said in, in Bahrain, and this was, it feels like eight forever ago now, when Oscar was out the race and Lando wasn't scoring many points. And I was nervous because I was kind of thinking, oh, Max, you know, he is really, really, really, really far behind. But there was obviously that tiny percent of me that believed that maybe he could do it. and I think this was another moment where it just felt like another

kind of he may still not do it but it just felt like one of those things of like wow this has really brought the pressure on and the pressure on McLaren now is going to be huge because they were getting questions about do you think Max is in the title and they were saying yes when he was like 94 points behind

he's now 55 behind and 33 behind Lando which is much closer and Lando feels like the driver that maybe has a slight edge at the moment over Oscar in terms of pure pace as we saw this weekend. It's fascinating. And thank you to Holkenberg for kind of being like, let's throw a little bit more spice into the championship and make it a little bit closer. Question from P1 Patreon of a TVR driver. Has Tommy chosen where his tattoo will be?

Well, we've walked past a few tattoo parlours, haven't we here in Austin? You joked? You were like, oh, maybe I should have a little booking of it. Now, he's even closer. I still think it's very unlikely you're going to get a tattoo mate and that's coming from me but I am a lot more of an optimist

as to Max's chances than you are it's just going to be so crucial out of this weekend I feel like Mexico Max will win that one I genuinely have so much confidence that he will win if there's a track you're going to back Max round it's Mexico with how Red Bull have always been very good round there

if he comes out of Austin with a huge point swing we don't know what's going to happen lap one term one tomorrow either exactly could be chaos again. You're talking about seven point swings. We can have 25 points swings. We had an eight point swing today. This is, this championship is just throwing so many curveballs. It is crazy how that championship has thrown so many curveballs. And even if Max doesn't do this, this is exactly what this world championship needs. Now, it wasn't plain sailing, though, was it, Tommy? Because you

were nauseous throughout the entirety of the watch along, but most so, more so when Russell was within one second. And George, he was about six, maybe six and a half tenths behind. Max in the DRS and decided I'm going to do the largest dive bomb we've seen since maybe a Max move. Yeah, probably. It's quite funny, isn't it as well, to see the team ready. What was he doing? Like Max saying, that's literally pulled the Max on you.

We got a little preview, didn't we, of what a George Russell. Max for Stap and title fight would look like. And it would be glorious. It would just be absolutely sensational. Thankfully, thankfully for Max's maybe title championship hopes, they didn't come together. Max showed some good awareness to just run off the track. because George would have plowed into the side of him because he locked up and went wide.

Max did have to bail on the runoff, otherwise it would have been a collision. And it was really interesting because during the watch long, we said this, didn't we? That realistically, Max is gaining and the sprint, the biggest argument is always,

oh, it's only a point here and there. What's the point? But Max would never give up one point. You were begging for Max to be like, I'll just let him go. Just let him go. Seven points. Seven points.

Just take the seven, rather than the eight or potentially zero. And it's a tough one. And you just never know how this championship's going to go. That could be crucial. It might not be. Who knows. But yeah, it was so nerve-wracking of all the drivers that could have been behind Max

to think that, right, this is going to be an easy Max win. And then to have Russell gaining and gaining on DRS, you know, his nemesis. And it was, yeah, it made it even more nerve-wracking and an enjoyable sprint, as to be said. enjoyable. Don't be silly. Anyone that watched you, you were literally hating every second of it. Even when he had a two and a half second lead, you're like, I just can't, I'm just so, I can't do it. Right, moving on to third place in the sprint, which of Carlos Sines, unbelievable. The man has another kind of podium, although not a real one, like a sprint podium, which is kind of like a made up one, if we're being honest.

But still, six points for Carlos. His season is finally coming together. He's had a podium already in Baku. he then has followed this up now with a great result here in Austin already. You have to say that it's like a Williams W before we've even got to the main race with a six-pointer. And Albon is well scoring some points in the sprint. I'm genuinely, this is the Carlos signs that we expected out the blocks at Williams. And yes, there was some unlucky moments, wasn't there for Carlos.

But also it didn't feel like he was at one with the car like he is now. And finally, you know, I'm surprised you haven't put it. in the podcast. Did Ferrari fire the wrong driver? Because he beat both the Ferraris again. He sure did. Yeah, we said yesterday it feels like he's finding his groove again, but I did not expect that would turn into a P3. Of course, he got some good fortune for the turn one incident, but then stayed there. He had a great qualifying as well. It wasn't like it was one of those situations where everyone went off at turn one and he said three. He had a great qualifying anyway, which put him in that position to gain some good qualifying.

points anyway, then obviously got the chaos at turn one, got up into P3 and stayed there. And my word, this really is the car loss that we thought, you know, he's going to go into Williams after being unfairly, you know, that's not to say that Hamilton didn't, shouldn't have gone to Ferrari. We've had this conversation many times of like, but it, but at the end of the day, Carlos wouldn't have been fired for any other reason, would he, or have been dropped by Ferrari? and thinking he's going to go into Williams, he's going to show exactly why,

what a great driver he is. And that didn't really happen for quite a few races, a lot more than I expected, actually. But my word, like ever since the podium in Baku, he's really just found something and it's that confidence boost. And yeah, he was absolutely brilliant. Absolutely locked in.

Someone who wasn't absolutely locked in was Lance Stroll. Question from Poo on Patreon member, Shuka 88. I am once again asking, why Lance is allowed to race? Yes, I think you summed it up on the watch along saying, I'm so bored of this, just why. This question just happens far too often in someone's career,

and it's the same odd narrative of, well, he can never be fired. You know, he's had a career, and yeah, he's had some good moments, but there's been so many bad moments, and any other driver would have been fired years and years ago for not being good enough, but that's not the situation he's in because his dad owns the team. And we've said so many times that, you know, you don't, they're not going to, they're not going to pack up and leave now, where as soon as, you know, they're getting the Adrian Newey card going into 2026. So that he's, it's painful to watch because it was an absolutely ridiculous

move as well. He sent that move all the way from Dallas, if I'm being completely honest with you. It was such a late, just, it wasn't even optimistic. It was delusional. P1 Live Delusion tour tickets are available. But it was delusional. And, yeah, Charlie in the background is literally shaking his head saying, how dare you. That is the worst segue he's ever heard.

But it was just ridiculous. I remember seeing it. And immediately, you're watching them go down the straight. And you're like, Lance is Mark, he's like seven car lengths back. How has there even been a move attempted? And then he just threw it. one to the inside. Say it was, say he was ninth and it's like, well, it's a point. Dive bomb. Why not? That was pointless. It was nowhere near. What was he fighting for?

Like 16th, 17th? Something nowhere. It was nowhere. So yeah, it just, it was completely pointless. It was a movie due on the F1 game where you just send it, lock up your break and then just smash into someone and then have to apologize afterwards. That's all it was. And then of course, worth mentioning Oliver Berman fighting Kimmy Antonelli. That was for a point, exactly as you kind of mentioned there, Tommy. And he gets a 10 second penalty. Now, as of right now, I don't know if you've got any penalty points. I assume not, but of course he is very much on the limit of being banned. 10 second penalty feels unbelievably harsh for what was quite fun to watch wheel to wheel racing. And you think, like, how can he be penalised so heavily for something that was...

Yeah, should he have given the place back? Is that what they're kind of arguing, saying, well, just give it back? And they're saying now that, you know, drivers should have it in their control to basically make those decisions. Maybe that's the kind of thinking they're going there. I mean, Hatch should have got over the phone and said clearly, because it was so obvious that he was going to have to give that place back. 10 seconds is obviously harsh. We'll find out whether he gets penalty points,

which would be really bad for him and could even result in a ban. I think it'd be incredibly harsh if he does for a track limit warning. But 10 seconds, I guess at the end of the day, it's no points or no points. So 10 seconds didn't really matter anyway because if you'd have let him through and finished ninth, it's still no points. I suppose so.

But then I guess if that was Hass's viewpoint on it, are they risking penalty points going that way? Unnecessarily. It's a question for sure. Right, that is it. We are done and dusted. This very much just random sprint podcast that we weren't planning on doing. We had to do one.

We had to do one. Yeah, it's now here. Let us know your thoughts. Massive potentially for Max's championship challenge. Still six races to go. Two sprints. and 55 points between Max Vastappen and the top of the standings. Tommy, try not to shake too much.

But there we go. Thank you, everybody. Tommy, what are your final thoughts? Final thoughts are... Max is winning at all. I'm living in a dream that surely didn't just happen. Let's see how qualifying goes later. Goodbye.

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