Away We Go Podcast

Dianne Bortoletto and Ciara Gillan recap the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, where Lando Norris took his first win of the season and McLaren's strategy left Oscar Piastri fuming before a gearbox failure ended his race. Recorded with Ciara reporting from Budapest on her final morning in the city, and Di in Melbourne.

70 laps, 4.38 kilometres a lap, 14 corners, all of them newly named after Formula 1 drivers, and 310,000 fans through the gates across the weekend.

Piastri started third after Lewis Hamilton was penalised for impeding him in qualifying and Kimi Antonelli picked up a grid penalty of his own. By turn three, Piastri had the lead. He held it until McLaren pitted him into traffic, where a touch with a recovering Carlos Sainz cost him time, and then pitted Norris into clean air. Piastri's radio to his engineer, "I can't even talk to you right now," said plenty, though he had made peace with the strategy by the time he faced the media, repeating Andrea Stella's line that the stop was about beating Hamilton. He retired with a gearbox failure.

Norris won ahead of Max Verstappen, who complained about the Red Bull all weekend and then drove the wheels off it, including a moment where tyres actually brushed with no damage done. Antonelli completed the podium and looked utterly wrecked afterwards, having come from seventh on the grid with a very late second stop just before the virtual safety car.

Ferrari's afternoon: Charles Leclerc fourth, Hamilton fifth, and a pit call for Hamilton with around 15 laps to go that he said afterwards he regretted, because his tyres were fine. That stop then earned him a five-second penalty for exceeding the pit lane limit by 0.1 kilometres an hour.

George Russell's anti-stall kicked in on the grid and dropped him to 22nd by the end of lap one. He recovered to seventh. Isack Hadjar sixth, Liam Lawson eighth, Nico Hulkenberg ninth for his first points of the season, Arvid Lindblad tenth, Gabriel Bortoleto eleventh. Both Cadillacs retired, Sergio Perez with his brakes on fire and Valtteri Bottas limping into the pits.

Di had Ferrari one-two on both her Predict the Podium accounts. It did not go well.

Credit where it is due: Norris is the reigning world champion, the McLaren had pace all weekend, and Hungary suits the team. Norris won there last year and Piastri the year before.

Di and Ciara also address the abuse being directed at Hamilton in social media comments, and make clear there is no place for it on any of the show's accounts.

Ciara's report from the track: the Hungaroring is only 30 minutes from Budapest, the organised shuttle was around 38 euro return and worth every cent, but getting out on day two took two and a half hours from seat to bus. Free water, plenty of toilets and a decent fan zone on one side of the ledger. Dust bowls, almost no shade, and a grandstand ticket check every single time you left your seat on the other. Bring food. A sandwich at the track cost 20 euro, about 32 Australian dollars.

On Budapest itself: the Danube, the architecture, the thermal baths, the Time Out Market food hall, good Lebanese and Italian eating, and Di's story of the women-only bath house she braved in her 20s. It is no longer the cheap city either of them remembers.

Also in this episode: the blue flag system and the GPS both failing during the race, what that chaos may have cost Piastri, and Malaysia confirmed at Sepang from 2 to 4 October, sitting between Azerbaijan and Singapore, which opens up a back-to-back for Southern Hemisphere fans.

Away We Go is on a break for the four-week racing shutdown, with guest episodes to come before the Dutch Grand Prix.

Follow Ciara at Formula Live Pulse: https://f1livepulse.com

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Dianne and Ciara Gillan recap the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, where Kimi Antonelli took pole by the biggest margin of the season, on his dad's birthday, and converted it into another win to extend his lead in the Drivers' Championship. Recorded late Sunday night in WA after a rare dry Spa race.

Also on the table this week: George Russell's heartbreaking lap-one DNF after clipping with Lewis Hamilton and the five-second penalty that neither Sky Sports nor we agreed with, Russell close to tears in his post-crash interview, Mercedes admitting all Merc-powered cars had start-line issues, Max Verstappen stealing second on lap one thanks to a tow from Isack Hadjar and the FIA's confusing 30-place grid penalty, Charles Leclerc briefly leading the race, the Piastri and Norris team orders drama with Lando's engineer telling him "no yo-yoing, I'll explain later," Hamilton nearly running over his pit crew and the unsafe release investigation, Norris's slow pit stop that cost him a podium shot, Arvid Lindblad's career-best qualifying in P7, Gabriele Bortoleto's equal career-best in P8, Kimi's growing calmness in the car, and the Leclerc and Piastri incident that somehow escaped a penalty while Hamilton's didn't.

Plus a fun stat from Autosport: if you started in F1 at 20 and made every Q3 for 15 seasons before retiring at 35, you'd still be 50 short of Hamilton's Q3 record. And Lewis Hamilton going soft-launch public with Kim Kardashian and family on social media.

Nicole Piastri's favourite hotel in the world? Right beside the Spa circuit.

Budapest next weekend, then the summer break. Silly season is about to properly ramp up, and hopefully some clarity on the Middle East races before the next round.

Follow Ciara at Formula Live Pulse: https://f1livepulse.com

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The mid-season break has barely started and the paddock is already on fire. Di is in Margaret River, Ciara is in Berlin, and this week they unpack every rumour worth talking about in the 2026 silly season.

Is Max Verstappen really talking to McLaren? What would actually be in it for him, and what would Jos Verstappen do inside a team with two number one drivers? Then there's the other side of that swap: Oscar Piastri to Red Bull. Di and Ciara debate whether Laurent Mekies can build a championship-winning car around him, and whether McLaren would ever really back Oscar to win a title now Lando has one on the board.

Also on the table this week: Christian Horner's next move and why Ferrari feels wrong on every level, the Flavio Briatore factor at Alpine, Gucci officially joining the grid and the fashion war brewing with Louis Vuitton, Yuki Tsunoda linked to Haas with money behind him, Fernando Alonso's future at Aston Martin, and whether Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are all at risk if the Middle East situation escalates.

Plus a fun fact from the Second Seat Podcast about Oscar's cursed special helmets, and a big F1 Academy moment: 16-year-old Ciara Battig taking pole and P2 on debut as the wildcard at Silverstone, Abbi Pulling becoming the first woman to win a GB3 race, and Nina Gatterman testing an Alpine F1 car.

Back next week after Spa.

Follow Ciara at Formula Live Pulse: https://f1livepulse.com

Website: https://awaywegopodcast.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/away-we-go-podcast/id1783230663 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4zhYpuRy3mL6y44ZERI0X6 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AwayWeGoPodcast Substack: https://awaywegopodcast.substack.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awaywegopodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@awaywego.podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awaywegopodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/away-we-go-podcast Threads: https://www.threads.com/@awaywegopodcast

Show notes:

The British Grand Prix delivered wheel-to-wheel battles, a championship leader fighting a broken car, and a finish that left almost every fan deflated. Charles Leclerc took Ferrari's 250th Formula 1 win at Silverstone, but it came under a safety car after Max Verstappen's late DNF, which is exactly as unsatisfying as it sounds.

Dianne Bortoletto and Ciara Gillan, motorsport journalist at Formula Live Pulse (f1livepulse.com), break down everything: Kimi Antonelli's fighting spirit on a mechanically compromised car, George Russell's fortunate second place, Ferrari's decision to keep Lewis Hamilton's five-second penalty quiet until the pit stop window, and the track limits debate that nobody can fully agree on. There's also a fun fact about who actually controls the lights at the start of every Formula 1 race.

This week: the safety car controversy, the track limits debate, Oscar Piastri's nightmare race, the sprint results and Predict the Podium leaderboard update.

Website: https://awaywegopodcast.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/away-we-go-podcast/id1783230663 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4zhYpuRy3mL6y44ZERI0X6 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AwayWeGoPodcast Substack: https://awaywegopodcast.substack.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awaywegopodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@awaywego.podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awaywegopodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/away-we-go-podcast Threads: https://www.threads.com/@awaywegopodcast

Next race: the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa.

Ferrari arrived in Austria with a big upgrade package and left with Lewis Hamilton fifth and Charles Leclerc eighth. George Russell inherited pole position beating a split-second yellow flag, then he led every lap, and won.

Dianne Bortoletto and Ciara Gillan break down the race, the qualifying controversy, Kimi Antonelli's chaotic opening laps, and why the Red Bull Ring broadcast left viewers feeling seasick.

Also this week: the FIA removes presidential term limits, Rachel Brookes departs Sky Sports, Cadillac's double DNF inside five laps, and Carlos Sainz's proposal that would change Formula 1 entirely.

Ciara Gillan is co-founder of Formula Live Pulse: https://f1livepulse.com

Predict the Podium: https://awaywegopodcast.com/play-along/

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Most Formula 1 fans file Monaco under one day, one budget you don't have: yacht money, championship-week crowds, a Sunday grandstand seat that costs more than the flights. Motorsport historian Colin Johnston has spent years doing it the other way.

This week Colin joins Dianne Bortoletto to show how to experience Monaco, Goodwood and the great old European circuits as an independent traveller, without the championship-weekend price tag. He makes the case for the Monaco Grand Prix Historique: the same iconic circuit, the cars you grew up watching, a fully open paddock, and three days of racing from 150 euros. He breaks down where to sit at Sainte Dévote, why Menton beats Nice as a base, and the 7 euro 80 train ride that drops you right at the track.

There's Monza in 2024 from inside the paddock the day Charles Leclerc won, the Tifosi compared to Irish rally fans, and why Goodwood Members' Meeting is the most carefully curated weekend in motorsport. Colin writes Formula 1 history for Mercedes, so the conversation also turns to myth-busting the 1950s, the Mille Miglia and Stirling Moss, and whether something real is lost from the sport now that the danger has gone.

Plus the final three: the race Colin would travel to, the race destination he would pick for a holiday, and the driver, dead or alive, he would take on holiday.

Colin Johnston

Website: https://racingdaydreams.com

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Dianne is wearing every piece of Ferrari merch she owns, because Ferrari are finally back. After a 595-day drought, Lewis Hamilton took his first race win in red at the Barcelona Catalunya Grand Prix. It came almost to the day, 30 years after Michael Schumacher won his own first race for Ferrari at the very same track, and Hamilton now has seven wins in Barcelona, one more than Schumacher ever managed. If that does not give you goosebumps, Di is not sure what will.

Di and Ciara Gillan from Formula Live Pulse break down how it actually happened, because for the first half it did not look like a Hamilton win at all. A slow start gave way to a bold three-stop strategy, and once Lewis came out on fresh tyres he was on rails, increasing his lead every lap and finishing nearly 20 seconds clear. He even said afterwards that the virtual safety car robbed him of a proper battle, which tells you everything about the confidence in that garage right now.

They get into the Lewis effect at Ferrari, from the brake change to the way Charles Leclerc says having Hamilton in the team has shifted how the whole operation works. There is plenty to unpack elsewhere too, with Kimi Antonelli still leading the championship despite a heartbreaking DNF, another retirement for Leclerc, and a George Russell second place that Di reckons owed more to luck than pace.

This was a brutal race for reliability with eight DNFs, and the conversation turns to the FIA's decision to reverse Pierre Gasly's Monaco penalty while leaving everyone else's in place. Di and Ciara do not hold back on the precedent that sets. There is also the Fernando Alonso retirement chatter, the Flavio Briatore rumours, and a reminder to go and read up on Crashgate if you do not already know it.

Next week is a non-race week with a very special guest interview, and then the season rolls on to Austria. Play along with Predict the Podium at awaywegopodcast.com/play-along and see if you can beat Di on her own leaderboard.

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Monaco is the race everyone loves to call boring, and this year it was anything but.

Nineteen-year-old Kimi Antonelli took pole, led every lap, and won, becoming the youngest winner in the history of the Monaco Grand Prix and stretching his championship lead to 66 points after just six rounds. It is the kind of statistic that stops you in your tracks. Behind him, the race fell apart.

Max Verstappen stalled on the grid and was out before the first corner, the first of seven retirements from a field of 22.

The stewards handed out penalties like a casino dealer on a hot streak, with pit lane speeding catching driver after driver, and a late red flag set up a standing restart that Antonelli handled without flinching.

Lewis Hamilton finished second for Ferrari and equalled Ayrton Senna's record of eight Monaco podiums, a moment that clearly meant something to him. Isack Hadjar held off George Russell for a hard-fought third while wrestling a car he was fighting the entire race, and to Di's surprise and delight, Fernando Alonso banked Aston Martin's first point of the season in tenth.

Away from the track, Ciara and Di got into Kim Kardashian's Formula 1 debut and that very awkward grid walk moment, the tired idea that the sport is only now discovering glamour when it has always been there. Controversy is never far in F1 and Mohammed Ben Sulayem's push to scrap FIA term limits is right up there. Di applauds Charles Leclerc committing his future to Ferrari while Ciara questions it. And Las Vegas extends its deal to 2037, the only race Formula 1 actually owns.

Ciara Gillan joins from Formula Live Pulse. Follow the next race with live telemetry on the Formula Live Pulse app: https://f1livepulse.com

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Emily Selleck walked into her first Formula 1 paddock at the Australian Grand Prix and had an interview with Max Verstappen within five minutes. Five years later, she is one of the most well-connected Australians in the sport, having covered races across the calendar while building a distinctive perspective at the intersection of motorsport, culture, and commercial strategy.

In this episode, host Dianne Bortoletto and regular co-host Ciara Gillan from Formula Live Pulse talk with Emily about what the paddock really looks like from the inside. The conversation covers Oscar Piastri's championship potential and the McLaren internal dynamics that complicate it, how brands are navigating an increasingly crowded F1 landscape, and where the sport still has ground to gain in engaging women as a serious audience.

Emily also goes behind the scenes at Carbone Beach, the Miami Grand Prix's most exclusive hospitality event, where race winners and celebrities converge on the Sunday of race weekend. She shares her take on what makes a genuinely great brand activation in Formula 1, and why the Australian Grand Prix's approach to female partnerships sets a benchmark worth following. Meanwhile Di wants to know why the sport's merchandise offering is still leaving significant opportunity on the table.

Now based in New York after nearly a decade in the city, Emily is moving from journalism into brand strategy, helping teams and commercial partners cut through the noise in Formula 1's most dynamic era.

Follow Emily Selleck: https://www.instagram.com/emselleck/

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The 2026 Canadian Grand Prix delivered one of the most action-packed races of the season so far, and Dianne Bortoletto and Ciara Gillan have plenty to say about it.

Kimi Antonelli claimed his fourth consecutive Formula 1 win in Montreal, becoming the only driver in history to win his first four races back to back. It should have been a George Russell weekend, and for the sprint it was, but a power unit failure on lap 29 ended his race and handed Antonelli the kind of result that championship battles are made of. Lewis Hamilton stepped onto the second step of the podium with his mum watching from the grandstands, Max Verstappen took his first podium of the season, and McLaren had a weekend to forget.

Di and Ciara dig into the McLaren strategy call that had Oscar Piastri on the radio saying exactly what he thought, the Kimi and George battle that had Toto Wolff on the radio more than once, and what George's very un-George-like reaction at retirement tells us about where his head is at in this championship fight.

There's also a look at the younger drivers making their mark, including Isack Hadjar going wheel to wheel with Max, and Franco Colapinto quietly delivering again for Alpine.

In the rumour mill: Gucci and Alpine, BYD potentially entering as a 12th team with Christian Horner's name attached, and a conversation about whether the Indian Grand Prix could find its way back onto the calendar.

Plus, if you're heading to Monaco, check out the Paddock Journal Atelier, set up at the Pop Up Hotel in Cap Ferrat just outside Monaco, offering fashion fittings, stylists and talks: https://thepopuphotel.com/hotels/silverstone/the-pop-up-paddock/

We also mention our episode with Jason Beste, the Mercedes head chef who worked the Indian Grand Prix during Nico Rosberg's championship year. Find Ep7 here: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/ebb35ceb-f2cc-47ce-b002-4d1d5524270f

Play along with our predictions game at https://awaywegopodcast.com/play-along/

Follow Ciara and Simone's Formula 1 predictions and content at Formula Live Pulse: https://f1livepulse.com

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