Formula 1 Podcast

Happy New Regulations everyone! Yes it's 2026 and the new F1 rules are coming into force very soon, even if the teams, F1 themselves and even the FIA aren't 100% sure of what they are and how they'll work. What could go wrong? (We'll find out soon, Scarbs will be joining us to explain all that!)
This week on the first podcast of 2026, we take a look back at the major F1 stories that have happened since we last got together a couple of months back. We've seen Friend of the Podcast Lando Norris become World Champion, the end of the Helmut Marko era at RedBull, rumours about the return of Christian Horner to the grid (with Alpine this time) and we wildly speculate about when we'll see the Renault name back in F1 again after they left, not for the first time, this year.
There's a load of tangents as well as we just generally have a catchup as it's the first time all 4 of us have spoken to each other at the same time since before Christmas, so it's a bit of a freeform, all over the place kind of show. But we have got an Is That Glock for a change!
And if you want to join in with the chat during the races (along with testing, practice and qualifying) head over to our ⁠Discord⁠ where there’s always a great crowd of people to watch along with. And on the socials we’ve got our ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠BlueSky⁠ & ⁠Twitter (or is it X)⁠ and Paul’s attempts at Sim Racing on our ⁠Twitch⁠ channel. And if you want to support us you can donate to our ⁠Patreon⁠ as well from as little as £/$/€ 1 per month
Enjoy

It was all lined up. The penultimate race weekend of the season at a track that isn't exactly condusive to overtakes. Lando  just needed to outscore both his rivals by 2 points over the sprint and the Grand Prix to claim his first World Driver's crown, he was starting ahead of Max Verstappen in both races and he's had the measure of Oscar Piastri recently. It's a sure thing isn't it?
This week on the podcast we look back at the race weekend where Lando Norris could well have lost the championship after McLaren took a gamble on strategy straight out the Ferrari playbook and managed to keep the 3 way title fight alive right up to the final race of the season next weekend in Abu Dhabi (and we all know how that's gone before don't we). How did they manage to get everything so wrong and be the only team not to pit under a safety car with 50 laps to go when there were compulsory stops after a maximum of 25 laps on a set of tyres?
At least for the likes of us we've got another season where the finale isn't a dead rubber/lame duck and we're not going to know who the 2025 World Champion is until Sunday afternoon (unless something goes badly wrong in qualifying of course!) So of course we're speculating like nobody's business on that and on what the 2026 RedBull & VCARB lineups are going to be along with which one of the 5 prosepective drivers is going to be left without a seat (spoiler, it's Yuki) until someone messes up and gets demoted/fired! Obviously we've got a good few tangents as well as it wouldn't be an episode of 3L4W without them!
And if you want to join in with the chat during the races (along with practice and qualifying) head over to our ⁠Discord⁠ where there’s always a great crowd of people to watch along with. And on the socials we’ve got our ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠BlueSky⁠ & ⁠Twitter (or is it X)⁠ and Paul’s attempts at Sim Racing on our ⁠Twitch⁠ channel. And if you want to support us you can donate to our ⁠Patreon⁠ as well from as little as £/$/€ 1 per month
Enjoy

As the saying goes; what happens in Vegas, stays In Vegas. And that was true about Lando Norris's 24 point lead over 2nd place in the World Driver's Championship after a double dq for McLaren and an imperious win for (former, but on longer title outsider) Max Verstappen. Could Max actually do it this season, from an over 100 point deficit to taking the title in the last 2 race weekends? If he does manage to pip both papaya clad drivers to the title, this will probably go down in history as just about the greatest championship win ever. So get your popcorn ready, we're at the sharp end!
This week on the podcast we look back at a Las Vegas Grand Prix that had more tha a few shocks. A wet track, an utterly abysmal Ferrari qualifying strategy, even by their own, already low, standards. Lance Stroll ending up as the victim of a move from Bortaletto that could only be described as "Strollesque" And a reault that's keeping the championship a three way scrap for far longer than anyone thought possible at the Summer break.
You might notice that we recorded this on Wednesday this week and thanks to a huge stroke of luck when it comes to F1 news, the Adrian Newey appointment as team principle at Aston Martin from next year was still doing the rounds of shocking and confusing everyone. What is Lawrence Stroll playing at? Is he actually a genius or will this come crashing down like his last few TP appointments did? (We're going to be going through a LOT of popcorn in the future)
And if you want to join in with the chat during the races (along with practice and qualifying) head over to our ⁠Discord⁠ where there’s always a great crowd of people to watch along with. And on the socials we’ve got our ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠BlueSky⁠ & ⁠Twitter (or is it X)⁠ and Paul’s attempts at Sim Racing on our ⁠Twitch⁠ channel. And if you want to support us you can donate to our ⁠Patreon⁠ as well from as little as £/$/€ 1 per month
Enjoy

Said the greatest driver ever to come out of Brazil. Sadly a few too many of the current grid took that to heart this weekend and a few teams were left with serious repair jobs, penalties and wasted weekends.
This week on the podcast we look back at the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend where a combination of a drying track, soaking kerbs (hey, we're British OK!) and quite possibly a lack of spatial awareness from some drivers gave us both an entertaining sprint and a Grand Prix that showed us that you cannot count out Max Verstappen when there's even the faintest sniff of a podium
As usual, we go team by team for who did what, who didn't do what and what the hell were they doing throughout the weekend after 2 races that have firmly tipped the balance for the World Driver's Championship very much onto Lando's side.

And if you want to join in with the chat during the races (along with practice and qualifying) head over to our Discord where there’s always a great crowd of people to watch along with. And on the socials we’ve got our Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky & Twitter (or is it X) and Paul’s attempts at Sim Racing on our Twitch channel. And if you want to support us you can donate to our Patreon as well from as little as £/$/€ 1 per month
Enjoy

With a rare week between races, it's a good time to take stock of what's been going on this season and who better to do it with than VritualStatMan himself Sean Kelly.
This week on the pod, Sean joins us from StatHQ and as always he's got an absolute mountain of facts, stories and plenty of anecdotes from the F1 paddock and beyond. Including getting told where to go by Guenther Steiner, Adrian Sutil's fashion sense, Jenson Button's credit card and tons more!
There's all the usual tangents as well and what would a show with Sean on be without a quiz, so we've got an Is That Glock that we've been holding in reserve fot ages, just for him!
And if you want to join in with the chat during the races (along with practice and qualifying) head over to our Discord where there’s always a great crowd of people to watch along with. And on the socials we’ve got our Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky & Twitter (or is it X) and Paul’s attempts at Sim Racing on our Twitch channel. And if you want to support us you can donate to our Patreon as well from as little as £/$/€ 1 per month
Enjoy