Formula 1 Podcast

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

Track limits, leaving the track and gaining an advantage, causing a collision, not leaving space at apexes, marshals on track with cars at full speed, contentious VSC on the penultimate lap, maybe at some point we'll get some racing in? The Mexican Grand Prix this year wasn't the best day for F1 race direction and the ever rotating cast of stewards. Amongst all the controversy we still got one of the best races of the season with battles going on all the way down the grid, even Lance Stroll managed to get a clean overtake in (if that doesn't say it's the end of days, I don't know what does.) And through all that, the 3 way battle for the championship is still going on and going down to the wire.

This week on the podcast we look back at the Mexican Grand Prix where Lando Norris managed to re-take the lead in the Word Driver's Championship for the first time since before the Suadi Arabian GP, after a very off the boil start to the weekend for team-mate and rival Oscar Piastri. But you can't forget the looming shadow of Max Vertappen, who is still up there too.

As always there's some attempts at predictions for how the rest of the season is going to pan out as we've still got 4 races and 2 sprints to go and it's really anyone's guess as to who is going to walk away with the 2025 crown. Doesn't stop us having a go though!

Also, sorry for missing last week after the US GP, but we were victims of the Amazon outage last Monday and it took until Wednesday to get things recovered properly

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

(PS, sorry for the delay, but I got caught up playing Power Washer Simulator 2!0

So Singapore then? Yes we got to see George Russell on the top step with a seemingly resurgent Max Verstappen taking 2nd, which only leaves 1 step on the podium for McLaren and this time round it was Lando Norris, but it was in a way that didn't exactly please Oscar and the other side of the garage.

Congratulations to McLaren on clinching their 2nd consecutive World Constructor's Championship, but now the hard work really starts for them. They've got 2 drivers in contention for the driver's crown, but it seems like things aren't exactly cordial right now. After Forcing Oscar to let Lando past after a fudged pit stop in Monza and now not letting him by after the usual Sinagpore GP lap 1 "3 into 1 doesn't go" first corner. Do we get the impression that Oscar is now driving for Oscar, due to the team having got their spot at the top?

We try and make sense of what's coming for the rest of the 2025 season as well as a stack of our usual going off on tangents (there's more in the Patreon show if that's your kind of thing). Along with our usual team by team lookback at the race and some of the best radio we've heard from Fernando Alonso since the last time he let the pitwall know his thoughts!

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

There's always something special about the Italian Grand Prix. It's a combination of the out and out speed of the circuit, the stands full of the Tifosi , even when Ferrari aren't on top form and of course a National Anthem before the race that it's impossible to sing without sounding like you 100% mean every word of it. And this week, we got the full package!

This week we look back at the Monza race where Max Verstappen proved that RedBull can still make a car that can destroy the rest of the grid on pure pace alone and McLaren proved that they are human after all by making mistakes and then fudging their solution to them when they crop up! Big announcement form us this week as well as we launch our new merch store, thanks to the wonderful people (especially Larisa) from Dashery. We've already got a few new designs up and it's not just t-shirts, there's mugs, stickers and even cushons with more designs to follow. Check it out at https://3legs4wheels.dashery.com/

Aside from that there's the usual ton of tangents and occasional missed jokes (Paul). 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

Has it really been a 2 month summer break for us? Yes it has and you don't know how sorry we are for vanishing again like that. But we're back and so's F1 after a turbulent summer for some!

This week on the pod we take a brief look at what's been going on since we last had chance to get round the mics. Including the least silly Silly Season in ages, lots of 2026 speculation, a compelling Dutch Grand Prix and a whole lot more besides. We've got a few new ideas and plans in the pipeline to0 for the future of the podcast (yes there is going to be a future) and maybe some new merch ideas too...

As for the title of this week's episode, well you'll have to listen to nearly the end to find out what it's about and please join in with what we've discovered by getting in touch below!

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

Well that was a few days in the unhinged world of F1, we started off with an action packed British Grand Prix, which gave Lando Norris his first home win and Nico Hülkenberg his first podium in 239 starts, after some very mixed up weather conditions. And just when we thought the dust was settling in time for F1 to have the break before the official Summer break, RedBull go and pull something kind of unexpected out of the bag by announcing that their team principle and divisive character Christian Horner is no lonfer their team principle (or CEO for that matter)

This week on the podcast we unpick the events of the last few days and revel in the fact that we decided to record a couple of days late this week so didn't miss the big midweek story! There's a bit of a review of the British GP as I'm fairly sure that everyone's heard about it all by now, but fresh off  the newswire there's our deep dive into the trainwreck that is (and has been for the last year) the RedBull situation. It's not a case of "we come to bury Horner, not to priase him" but more of our honest thoughts on him as a team principle and his image as a person (not many punches were pulled in the making of this bit).

On the Sauber side of the garage, we end up doing an impromptu Is That Glock as Kieren & Paul had done their homework, so we made Sian & Chris suffer because of it!

Of course there's a fair amount of tangents too 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 weve 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's been a big time for Formula 1 these past few days, we've had the launch of Brad Pitt's long-awaited F1 movie coming straight after a triple header (that we managed to miss, but RIP the Groundhog) and then heading to Austria for what promised to be a shoot-out at RedBull's home track.

Well it didn't exacly pan out well for the team that gives you wiiings after all that (also Max didn't turn up to the movie premier in NYC either), but once again we saw a dominant performance from McLaren, who really have made THE car of 2025, leaving everyone else scabbling to pick up what they can from the race.

This week on the podcast there's some of your thoughts on the F1 movie, with a couple of spoilers (but there's a timer so you can skip through them) and the ups and downs of an Austrian Grand Prix that started with a fire and kind of went on from there.

Sorry for the radio silence again, between covid, flu (thought it was meant to be Summer right now?) and various festivals and gigs we've either all not been able to be in the same place or speak for what seems like months! To make up for it, we recorded an extra show this week for our Patreon subscribers, that you can listen to if you sign up here

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 weve got our Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky & Twitter (or is it X) and Paul’s attempts at Sim Racing on our Twitch channel

Enjoy

Well if that was the last Grand Prix at Imola for the forseeable future, it didn't leave us with a sour taste in the mouth and while it wasn't a classic race it was still better than some of the parades we've had round the circuit for the last 5 years since F1 made a return there in the patched together 2020 season.

This week we take a look back at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the first of 2 Italian races this season and the start of the European races to boot. Could McLaren and in particular Oscar Piastri keep up their dominant form from the first quarter of the season, now we're not flying away as much, or with the appearance of a few upgrades (as is traditional at this time of year), would we see more than the papaya cars in the mix?

The answer was both sort of yes and sort of no as Max Verstappen spoiled the papaya party this week by completely turning around a RedBull that he wasn't overly keen on up to Saturday afternoon to pull out his most Max-like performances of the season so far. After "that move" on turn 2, there was seemingly no stopping him from running away with it. Especially when McLaren decided to let their drivers race rather than try to strategise a win!

Obviously we're as tangent heavy as always (for some reason that you'll hear) and we've ended up with Franz Ferdinand as our featured band of the week (when did this become a music pod?) And as a bonus, while he's not here this week, Dan has promised to be on more shows this year!

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 weve 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

After the fairly restrained Japanese Grand Prix we needed a bit of a plate cleanser and that's exactly what Bahrain served up to us for out 2nd race in the Gulf this season. A dominant win for McLaren's Oscar Piastri , but eith more FIA based chaos hiding beneath the surface.

This week on the podcast we look at the Bahrain Grand Prix which saw a huge number of technical gremlins strike several teams, and some very strange and late calls from the stewards, which ened up ahving a negative effect on a few driver's races. It all kicked off on Saturday when Nico Hulkenberg's best Q1 lap time was deleted during Q3, but the problem was he'd already taken part in Q2 when it turned out he shouldn't have actually got through, this had a knock on effct on Alex Albon, who should then have made the 2nd session with a car that team principle James Vowles claimed had th pace for Q3.

It didn't get much better from there as we had timing failures, George Russell able to open his DRS manually and by mistake (when he wqas trying to use the radio) and who knows what else. As usual there's our team by team review and the expected sheload of tangents!

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 weve 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