The Grid Girls Formula: An F1 Podcast

Singapore Grand Prix 2026 recap (finally!). Max Verstappen won the Sprint and the race, Lewis Hamilton lost a podium after a poor strategy call under the Virtual Safety Car, McLaren's drivers collided in the Sprint, and Kimi Antonelli moved closer to the championship. Let's talk about it!

In this episode:

• What went wrong with Overtake Mode in Sprint Qualifying
• Why intermediate tyres decided the Sprint
• Verstappen’s first Marina Bay win
• What a VSC does to a pit stop, and how Hamilton’s call played out
• McLaren’s collision and Norris’s apology
• Antonelli’s 102-point lead and what he needs in Austin
• A preview of the United States Grand Prix

Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia review for newer F1 fans. A mechanical engineer explains why F1 cars lost power on the formation lap at Sepang, how Red Bull Ford won its first race as an engine manufacturer, why Mercedes lost a podium late with Russell's retirement, and how Hamilton and Ferrari recovered to finish on the podium.

In this episode:

• The formation lap software bug and the FIA's explanation, in plain English
• Why the Bahrain GP was held at Sepang, and what happened there
• Red Bull Ford's first win with its own power unit
• Mercedes' Sepang heartbreak and the 84-point championship gap
• Hamilton and Ferrari's comeback from the back of the field
• A quick look at every other team
• Singapore GP preview: the first sprint weekend at Marina Bay, and the 2008 "crashgate" story

My take: F1's 2026 engines are an impressive piece of technology, but splitting power between electrical and mechanical adds new ways for things to go wrong.

Grid Girls Formula explains Formula 1 for newer fans: race recaps, technical analysis, history, news and opinion.

Baku delivered another most dramatic weekend! George Russell takes a dominant pole and holds off Max Verstappen by just 0.196 seconds for his third win of the year — but the story everyone's talking about is the Turn 1 restart crash that ended the races of Franco Colapinto, Pierre Gasly, and reigning world champion Lando Norris, and the paddock disagreement it sparked afterward.

Also in this episode: Kimi Antonelli's costly Q1 crash and recovery drive to P5, the near-unheard-of moment Red Bull considered letting Isack Hadjar past Max Verstappen, McLaren's zero-point weekend, and a full rundown of the rest of the grid. Plus, a look ahead to next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix — being held in Malaysia.

New episodes every week. Follow along on Instagram @gridgirlsformula.

Same car, same drivers, completely different result — why? This week: the real physics of what makes an F1 track "high downforce" vs "low downforce," aero grip vs mechanical grip, why straights are a strategy tool not just a speed test, and why Ferrari/McLaren/Red Bull/Mercedes each thrive on different corners. Then a full preview of this weekend's Baku Grand Prix — the one track that breaks every rule we just covered.

New to F1 and want the stuff Drive to Survive skipped? This is your show. New episode every week.

Follow @gridgirlsformula on Instagram for clips and breakdowns

A full breakdown of the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix — Formula 1's first-ever race at the new Madring circuit in Madrid. Lando Norris led from pole but lost the race to a mistimed Virtual Safety Car window, Charles Leclerc led the most laps but finished fourth, and Kimi Antonelli picked up his eighth win of the season to extend his championship lead to 81 points.

In this episode: qualifying's razor-thin margins, the Lap 1 chaos, Norris's brutal pit stop timing, Leclerc's long strategy gamble, Lewis Hamilton's brake failure and title concession, the Sainz/Alonso home-race drama, and why F1 drivers and pundits are already calling for the Madring to be redesigned before 2027.

If you're newer to F1 through Drive to Survive or the F1 movie, this episode is built to explain not just what happened, but why it matters — strategy, regulations, and the technical side, explained without assuming you already know it all.

He started 19th on the grid at his home Grand Prix and won. Officially, it's the 2nd-biggest comeback to a race win in Formula 1 history — behind only John Watson's 1983 Long Beach win from P22.

This week: Kimi Antonelli's full comeback story at Monza, why George Russell's title hopes just took a hit, Ferrari's disastrous home race with Charles Leclerc's crash, and a look ahead to F1's brand-new Madrid Grand Prix — the first Spanish GP at a new circuit in 40+ years.

New episode every week — perfect if you're newer to F1 and want the strategy and history explained without the jargon.

Follow Grid Girls Formula on Instagram: @gridgirlsformula

A Formula 1 pit stop can take under two seconds — practically less time than it takes you to blink twice. But it's not just fast mechanics. It's a rehearsed, high-stakes operation where every person has exactly one job, and if even one is off by a tenth of a second, the whole thing falls apart.In this episode we go inside the pit box role by role: the front and rear jack, the four-corner wheel crews, the wing adjuster, and the stabilizers — then zoom out to who actually makes the call to release the car, why unsafe releases carry brutal penalties, and how pit stop timing feeds into undercut and overcut strategy on track. We also get into what it costs to run a fast pit crew (wheel guns alone run $20-30k each) and why the fastest teams treat pit stops as an engineering problem, not just a talent one.By the end, you'll watch pit stops differently — not as a blur, but as a sequence you can actually read.We will cover:Why a pit stop isn't spontaneousThe pit wall: who's really calling the stopCrew design: why everyone has exactly one jobRole breakdown: jacks, corners, wing, stabilizersThe traffic light system and unsafe release penaltiesHow pit stops factor into undercut/overcut strategyTraining, fatigue, and crew rotationThe cost of a fast pit crewWhen things go wrong: contingency planning

From a simple wood-and-metal wheel in the 1950s to a $50,000–$100,000 handheld computer today — the F1 steering wheel has changed more than almost any other part of the car. This episode goes decade by decade through that evolution: why wheels shrank as downforce and aero improved, when power steering and paddle shifting showed up, and a full rundown of what every button, dial, and screen on a modern wheel actually does — from differential and brake balance adjustments to the "Mario Kart" overtake button. If you've ever wondered what a driver's hands are actually doing mid-corner, this one's for you.

Lando Norris takes pole and the win, but this Hungarian Grand Prix was defined by everything that went wrong for his teammate — a title-defining contact with Carlos Sainz, a brutal blue flag system malfunction, and a late gearbox failure that ended what looked like a career-best day for Oscar Piastri.In this episode we break down the whole weekend team by team:McLaren's front-running pace and Piastri's gutting mechanical failureThe Piastri/Sainz collision, the broken blue flag system, and the fallout for WilliamsFerrari's three-stop strategy, Hamilton's penalties, and a solid points dayAntonelli's smart two-stop podium and George Russell's cursed weekend (well...cursed season more like)Verstappen's early move on Hamilton and Red Bull's team tactics with HadjarAston Martin's massive upgrade and Alonso's best qualifying of the seasonHulkenberg's first points of the year and a wild midfield battleCadillac's rough double DNFPlus: what it means that we've now had five different winners in the last five Grands Prix — is this the most competitive F1 season in years?

Grid penalties tore up the starting order before lights out, and the race that followed didn't slow down from there. We go team by team through a chaotic Grand Prix: Piastri's bold battle with Hamilton, Norris's recovery drive from P13 to P7, Isack Hadjar's brilliant strategy call that saw him rocket from the back to P6, Verstappen's fireworks on lap one, and Ferrari's messy pit lane drama with Hamilton picking up a 5-second penalty and a hefty fine.Plus — Russell's rough day, Antonelli's hard-fought win, Lindblad's career-best qualifying, and the championship gap that just grew to 50 points.Then we shift gears into our Hungarian GP preview: why Budapest is "Monaco without the walls," the wild history behind this race (1986's Iron Curtain classic, Alonso's 2003 masterpiece, Ocon's chaotic 2021 shocker), and what to watch for as the field heads to one of the toughest tracks on the calendar.🎧 Full breakdown, team by team, plus everything you need heading into Hungary.