2 Soft Compounds

US GP: Piastri Cracks, Norris Rises & Is Verstappen Really In The Hunt For The Championship?

• W4 Podcast Studio • Season 1 • Episode 39

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This week on 2 Soft Compounds, Rick is joined by Damien Reid as they break down Max Verstappen’s Texas masterclass - a weekend that felt like a throwback to his dominant years.

The guys dissect McLaren’s self-inflicted sprint disaster, growing tension between Norris and Piastri and why Oscar’s cool composure might finally be cracking under pressure. They question whether McLaren are secretly favouring Norris and if Ferrari’s near-perfect strategy was in fact, just another “almost.”

Plus: Russell’s quiet consistency, Williams’ surprise potential and early whispers that Ferrari’s 2026 engine could change everything. As F1 heads to Mexico are we witnessing Verstappen’s relentless charge toward another title?

All this and more, right here on 2 Soft Compounds.

Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: W4 Podcast Studio

SPEAKER_00:

I don't make mistakes, I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong. Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, welcome to another edition of Two Soft Compounds. Me, Rick and Damien Reed, motoring journalist and Formula One commentator. I'm sounding a bit like Barry White this week because I am full of cold. But it's time we look back at the rather warm Austin, Texas American Grand Prix at the circuit of the Americas. And let's start, I think, by summarising the weekend up in that uh Max Verstappen produced another masterclass demo.

SPEAKER_00:

It reminded me so much of his dominant years of 2021, 22, 23, where he was just coasting at the end of it. And at the end of the day, he was only the third fastest lap of the race.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and of course, uh also took pole position in the sprint and won the sprint race, took pole position in qualifying and then went on to win the race. Just another masterclass from him. One thing I wanted to ask you about, Demo, is it was fairly processional the race on Sunday. And I thought that because the development's been happening throughout the year, most teams have finished developing their 2025 car now, obviously. I know Red Bull were the final team to bring some aero upgrades to the paddock. But it just seems like the gap between cars is really quite even. So there was very few uh overtaking opportunities at the circuit of the Americ the Americas. Normally they would see a lot more, but I think the car development has just uh everyone's caught up with each other, haven't they?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're kind of getting that stage and we're we're well and truly into the phase of those who are trying to do their best for the end of this season and those who want to build their car for next year are holding fire. But but also, too, I think the fact that being in a flyaway race in Texas and we've got Mexico coming up, as I I wouldn't be surprised if they probably had a word to the drivers to say, hey, listen, keep an eye on the parts because it's not easy to bring them over. It's not like we can go down the road to Banbury and pick a few up and bring them back. So there's probably that in the back of their mind as well because we've got you know, we're we're going to, as you say, we're going to Mexico this weekend. And of course, turn one just invites damage. So I'm sure after the sprint mess up, when they got to Sunday, it was just like, just think about the car, think about things. If drivers are capable of doing that, I'm sure that that's probably what they were asking them to do.

SPEAKER_01:

So you talk about McLaren in the sprint, obviously, and um Oscar Piastri. I think personally that the pressure is getting to him now. I think with Max closing the gap and Lando closing the gap, I think he's losing his cool. He's always been Mr. Iceman, especially on team radio. And then we saw the the incident which happened in Singapore when we all said, Well, he's gonna get his elbows out now. Is he gonna ignore team orders? And I thought that was happening uh lap one in the sprint until I reviewed the footage. And obviously it was Piastri turning in a much sharper angle than everyone else, trying to undercut Lando, um, which turned him straight into the path of Nico Hulkenberg. Now he should have known Nico or many other cars were gonna be there when he made that bizarre turn. So really that was himself to blame, and another maybe under pressure moment from him which forced him into his teammates. So not only did he he have the contact with Nico, but he took his teammate out as well. I think the pressure's showing there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're right, you're absolutely right. It was his own error that got him into that situation, and uh, as you say, it goes back to Singapore and uh Baku again, it was a driver error. And you're right, I think it's in his head. I think that the psychological uh side of all this is catching up with him. And what from what I could see in in Texas in that turn one incident was you know, getting reprimanded about, you know, don't crash into your own teammate, and when he got uh told on the radio in Hungary to sort of back off from Lando and not get too close to him, and obviously Lando's crashed into him a couple of times now, and so all of that has been floating around inside of his head. And I think he's when he saw Lando check up, you're right, he's pulled in to try and avoid running into the gearbox of the McLaren to save having another one of those conversations with McLaren team management. But at that corner on lap one, it's exactly the wrong thing to do because you've got a million cars on the inside of you, and that was the only way out of it. So, yeah, 100% Oscar's fault. And I'll put it right down to the pressure is getting to him. He's starting to crack.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, also I think McLaren have been so used to turning up at race weekends and having a fiercely dominant car. And now, towards back end of the season, they've unlocked the true potential of the Red Bull car under the hands of Max Verstappen, obviously. And so they can't expect that dominance anymore for the rest of the season. And they turn up at the weekends, they're kind of like, Are we going to be okay here? Are we not gonna be okay? Is Red Bull gonna run away with it? They've never had that problem before. Uh, but now and for the last couple of races, they certainly have got that problem. And the other thing about the sprint crash is that that robbed McLaren of some valuable data because let's face it, the sprint can be used as a practice session, really, for the main race in terms of harvesting data from the cars for uh finding out massively about tired dagg, which they didn't do because, of course, they the both cars were out at the start of the sprint race. So that left them on the back foot for the race itself on Sunday.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. That whole turn one incident and the sprint put them off for the whole weekend because you're right, they got zero data on the long run. And I'm sure that's why when they did go into qualifying, that they didn't do the two stage of qualifying. They didn't sort of do a quick lap box, refuel, and go out again. They stayed out. And so they were carrying more fuel through Q1 than than any other car through there because they're trying to get as much data as possible to make up from that lost ground. And and as a result, during Q1, you know, Lando was under steering a couple of times and he was only 12th and 13th because they were carrying that extra fuel. So again, that put them on the back foot again, going into Q2 for the main race. So then you could hear them squawking on the radio about the tires and uh Lando having to cycle through the heat. He was getting instructions on cycling through the heat element of his tires because this is vital information that they didn't pick up during the sprint. And that one little incident in turn one played out for the rest of the weekend for them.

SPEAKER_01:

Now let me ask you about this with McLaren. Uh, someone made this comment to me the other day, and I sort of bashed it away, and then I thought, actually, maybe there's a point here. Uh they said, how come Norris was able to qualify for the main race in second place? And Piastri, the best he could do was sixth. And then someone made the comment to me saying, Are they now favouring Norris in the McLaren garage? Are they giving him more technical advice than Piastri is getting? Are they giving him more assistance with the rebuild and build of the of the car and the setup? Do you think there's any truth in that? I mean, it is weird that for the whole season, Piastri and Norris have been on a par with each other. It's either been Norris or Piastri that puts it on pole. The other one's never very far behind, and it's a big battle during the race itself. But now we get to Austin and Piastri can only manage P6.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's pretty clearly evident that it that is the case, and it's been the case for that for quite a long time. If you go back to, I think it was before Baku, they rebuilt the car for Lando because he couldn't drive the car. So they rebuilt the car to suit more of his driving style, which impacted Oscar's driving style. Now, this is going back within the first four races of the year. So it started back then. And if you want to go right back, you know, the team orders back at the Australian Grand Prix when they told Oscar to back off and hold positions. So I think right from the very first race weekend in Melbourne, Australia, they've been favouring Lando. And of course, he had those uh he had the engine blow up and then he had the the DNF in Canada. And so they've been trying to sort of make amends for it since then.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, I mean that's that that's fascinating, isn't it? I mean uh uh to play it out that publicly, I mean I can understand it all happening behind closed doors and things, but to play out publicly where it's clear that Norris has got an advantage with the the the car underneath him than Piastri in qualifying, I think that's that's fairly fascinating and very telling actually. Uh so Norris is closing the gap on Piastri. Obviously, uh Supermax is closing the gap on both of them. I saw a poster for the Mexico Grand Prix this morning. I don't know if you've seen it from one of the Formula One websites. Uh you remember the Jaws poster of the woman swimming and the shark coming up from below?

SPEAKER_00:

I saw that the two McLaren guys in the little boat, in the little dinghy yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just the best artwork of the entire season. I screen capped that, I had to say, but I thought that summed it up perfectly. Yeah, so Max is out for blood, and uh we moved to Mexico this weekend. Before we uh start previewing that, let me just uh touch on Ferrari. I've been very vocal over the last few years about Ferrari and their terrible, terrible strategy calls. Uh, but for a moment on Sunday in the race in America, it looked as though they'd got it bang on by putting Charlotte Clerk on the soft tire, which enabled him to pass Norris in turn one and hold on to second position for quite a while. Yeah, no, that that was good.

SPEAKER_00:

Um and that was great. But then they it all came undone in the race. They left him out for a lap too long. They should have boxed him instantly when Lando boxed, because then that forced Charles to get into that awkward sort of duel with Lewis Hamilton. If he had a boxed a lap earlier, so I like followed Lando straight in, uh, he wouldn't have had that, you know, almost wheel banging with Lewis Hamilton. So they almost got it right, but then they let it go.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, which you know is typical Ferrari, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. We've got to talk about some of the other teams in the American Grand Prix. Uh Williams Antonelli had a nightmare in the omening laps when he uh when he was pushed to the back of the uh the grid with the collision. Uh George Russell again, solid race.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, George Russell again, he's Mr. Quiet and consistent. You know, he was just doing his thing. And and again, it's proven to found something with the Mercedes that it's another hot race where it performed, whereas previously, you know, it hasn't been in that case. So but what I found interesting though is it uh while he was he was doing well in his position, he couldn't close up onto Oscar. I found that quite interesting, other than the opening few laps, maybe once when he was on fresh rubber during the middle of the race. But other than that, he he maintained a consistent round about two seconds off the back of Oscar and was rarely in his DRS zone. So he was also having some higher temperature issues as well, but still hanging in there. And overall, the Mercedes is performing in hot weather, and unfortunately with for Kimmy, he was an innocent victim in that one. I think you know Carlos Sainz just missed his braking marker and ploughed into the side of him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you talk about this sort of two maintaining a two-second gap. That was my point earlier, really. The whole field looked as though they were maintaining a two-second gap, which led down to my thing about development, you know, that all the cars are very, very similar towards the end of the season. Obviously, next year throws it completely wide open because no one knows which car's gonna perform better than the other. But yeah, that two-second maintenance gap between cars ahead w was what made the race um a little bit pedestrian.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're right. You know, I think it's getting to that point where they're just going, okay, let's hold our positions in terms of the championship or whatever we can do because they've got to get to the end of the season and they're working on next year's car. But, you know, I mean, I love the Texas track. I think it's a one of the best driving tracks that you can get on. But it just for this one, it wasn't the most exciting race, but it did set up a very good and a very exciting prospect for the championship. So I'll give it five stars for doing that. But on its own as a race, yeah, it was a little bit processional, have to say.

SPEAKER_01:

One battle that we did witness uh was towards the back of the field. It was Colopinto and Pierre Gasly. I mean, I just thought it was genius. Colopinto ignoring team orders over the radio and basically said, I'm faster than him and I'm gonna prove it by overtaking him. And that's what happened apparently since he's backtracked and said, Yeah, actually was the wrong thing to do. I think Flavio's probably gone in and out had a strong word, but that was one of the most uh entertaining overtakes of the entire race.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not like they're fighting for points. They're 17th and 18th, they're both gonna get zero points regardless of what happens. I love the fact that there were there was a battle right down to 20th, because you know, Gabby was behind Bordletto was behind battling with Gasly on the very last lap. But I thought that was a a great call from Franco to go, well, look, I'm clearly faster than him. And he he gapped him immediately. As soon as he got past Gasly into turn one, that gap just blew out and he proved himself right. So at the end of the day, he's fighting for his seat as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he is indeed. And uh we're gonna talk about the Mexican Grand Prix, which is coming up this weekend now. I read something before we get onto that, I read something very interesting today about Ferrari's power unit for 2026. Apparently there's been a number of leaks that have come out of Marinello, uh, but leaks in a positive way, they're now saying that the Ferrari power unit could be the most superior in 2026, which could be why Lewis Hamilton's head hasn't gone down too much, because he knows what's around the corner for next year.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that would be very interesting. I mean, the Ferrari have just opened their new test track, which is uh right next to Fiorano, which is their existing one, and it's designed around around driving cars of of hybrid nature, being obviously foot their Formula One cars as well. So they've specifically designed this track around the new power unit that they're gonna put in their car for next year. So that shows you the sort of investment that they're throwing at it, and obviously they've had some kind of mules out there running around of some sort. Uh, but yeah, I'll be very interested to see how how that goes. And uh if that is the case, then have Haas scored a known goal yet again, as just as a Ferrari's coming on board, they're gonna ditch the Ferrari engine.

SPEAKER_01:

And the other rumour I've heard, and it is just a rumour, it could be complete baloney, is that Red Bull and their powertrain, they're really struggling with it. So uh this is this is the the Ford backed one, isn't it, Damo?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is Ford stepping on board. And I've said to other people during the during the course of the year, and and particularly with Cadillac as well, saying, look, just because they're a mega dollar manufacturer coming in doesn't mean they're going to be dominant. That doesn't mean they're going to be great. You've got to look at Ford's history in Formula One. Most recently, anyway, with Jaguar, not exactly a success. Stuart Grand Prix, not exactly a success. It got one win with uh Johnny Herbert in the entire time. But then before that, when they were just purely an engine supplier, of course, with the DFV, they gave Benetton their world championship in '94. But as a factory coming in, you can't just assume that because it's the Ford Motor Company or it's General Motors, that they're going to be successful straight off the back. So they're going to be leaning on Red Bull as much as possible. But I can see a point maybe later on, if they got enough cash, where they'll sort of muscle Red Bull out, and that will become if they decide to hang around in Formula One and the Red Bull operation will become the Ford operation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but again, you know, so many interesting points. I was talking to a good friend of mine who hopefully is listening to this, Dan Yantin, who used to run uh Waxio Connors in Dubai. Do you remember that place?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_01:

It's weird. Like if you if you if you remember it, you've never been there. Yeah, I remember going there. I don't remember coming out. There you go. Uh anyway, Dan uh and I uh went to uh went to a mutual friend's funeral the other day and we and he gave me a lift and we were talking in the car. Uh he's a massive Formula One fan. Uh he was talking in the car about just the number of perm rimples there will be for next season. We've talked about it on the podcast many times, but you know, the whole thing is totally up in the air. You might find he he has a theory that he thinks Williams is going to be a dominant car next year, which I thought was quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

I agree with him. I've said this to other people. I remember looking back at McLaren about five years ago, and and if you remember Fernando Alondo famously calling it a GP2 engine, uh man, how pathetic the team was then and how quickly they've come on board by getting the right people on board and changing things around. And I can see that with Williams. I can see that it's been a long phase changing from the Claire Williams era to the Doralton Capital era, but getting James Vows on board was a stroke of genius. And then Carlos Sainz, and of course, Atlassian is the most cashed up sponsor in Formula One. So, you know, Williams technically have the biggest budget in Formula One. They're not telling anyone about it. So it's all pointing in the right direction. I think your friend's right, that in Williams, over the next two to three seasons, will be one to keep an eye on.

SPEAKER_01:

There we go. It's a Dan Yantin prediction for next season. Let's move on then to Miami. It's a track which some people love and some people hate. It's a track with one of the longest start-finish straights in Formula One. It's a track which generates a lot of excitement in lap one when you can have incidents at turn one, turn two, turn three, and turn four as they snake their way through the old section. And then, of course, you've got the slow stadium bit, which I find looks spectacular, but is actually really quite irritating for the drivers because they have to slow down so much and it's virtually impossible to overtake in that stadium section unless you barred your way through.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they didn't have much choice because the stadium was there and they wanted to put the track back to where it was, but unfortunately there was a baseball stadium in the middle of it. So they've made the best out of it. But it is really like cruising through a drive-thru Starbucks. You it's single filed and you've got people around you and away you go. It's an interesting track. The main thing out of this one, which we'll keep an eye on this weekend, is the elevation. It's the uh it's the highest altitude track that we go to. I think it's 19,000 feet, I think, above sea level. So as engines are getting towards the end of their lifespan, we've got to make sure that the possibility of engines popping as they run a bit too lean with the altitude, and it reduces your horsepower because you're you're running thinner air through the car. So, yeah, that's probably the main takeaway, I think, to keep an eye on for this weekend in terms of the reliability of what we what we're gonna see.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, we are gonna see some uh big changes to FP1 on Friday. Saurba is the only team not to be using one of their rookie drivers in FP1. Nine teams are using their mandatory rookie session, uh, which they have to do uh occasionally throughout the season. Uh so nine teams are gonna have different drivers in their cars for FP1, which should make things interesting, especially when you're worried about crash damage.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it always usually happens when we get to this point of the year that that's the teams think, hang on, we've got these drivers we have to pump through, it's part of the rules. Um we're running out of races, and so you start to look at the situation and you pick the best of the bad bunch. You don't want to really run a rookie in Brazil because you can risk an injury. It's a it's a dangerous old school track. And you don't really want to run one in in Abu Dhabi either if you're you know fighting for a position in the constructors' championship. So you need your number one guys getting as much information as they can. So I'm surprised we didn't see more actually in Texas, to be fair. But they will start pumping them through here. And then and I think too, we'll probably see the a similar thing in Qatar as well, where there's lots of runoff and little chance of damage to the cars if they do uh have a bit of an off in FP1. So new faces for FP1.

SPEAKER_01:

If I remember rightly, McLaren didn't do very well at this race last year, did they? Their car, I think, was suffering from altitude sickness.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was one of those ones where the car didn't like the thinner air and uh it was struggling a lot. So it might be another Red Bull fest in that regard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um definitely I can see Max Verstappen dominating another weekend, which makes the World Championship even more interesting. There's one thing I noticed uh from my notes after Texas is that McLaren can no longer claim to have the best tire degradation in the whole of the field. Uh Red Bull have definitely caught them up on that. They're not no longer shredding their tires as the race goes on.

SPEAKER_00:

If you remember going back to Baku, you know, Max was complaining about it and uh now he's got his head around it. And even Yuki Sonoda, you know, he's moved himself up a bit to P7. He, you know, it's now put re uh Red Bull only ten points behind getting P2 on the constructors. So Yuki had had a good result for that one. But uh yeah, McLaren's tire issues again, it goes back, they didn't have that information from uh the sprint race as well. And uh going back to the to the message of Will Joseph was giving to to Lando about the carcass temperature and how he can cycle the the temperature through the tire to bring the tire back down to manage it and you know flatten the the egg shape of the of the wheel effectively, give him more grip to have another attack. I thought that was really, really good intel and uh and showed a maturity in Lando to firstly to listen to him, but but to to do that, to hang back, let Max run away for a little bit, and then have another crack at him. And I thought that was it really interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was interesting to see Lando managed in that way, but also taking note of that management. And of course, we've failed to mention earlier, Lando Norris was uh on a track limits strike three with a black and white flag. He got those those early strikes very early in the race, and then to maintain the the track discipline for 80% of the remaining race and still retaining that second spot, I thought was pretty damn good from him.

SPEAKER_00:

You could almost read his mind when he made that move on Charles Leclerc and he hovered around behind him and he eventually got the DRS and he got that that run down to him, but he got the run on him into that corner where he's been caught out on track limits so many times before. And you could see him throw the car into a corner, and then as the commentator said it's like he put the handbrake on, it nipped the back around. He was thinking, whoa, I don't want to do this. And it was uh it was actually really interesting to see a guy wrestle the car so aggressively because he knew that if he had it crossed over, it would have been five seconds and you know Charles Leclerc would have got the position back.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, interesting. Um we were talking about Mexico and FP1 having different drivers. I noticed that Jack Crawford is replacing Lance Stroll. If you were you're Lance Stroll's manager, you're thinking, oh, he needs as much time in the car as possible so he doesn't have a disaster of a race.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. I mean, it's it's got to be a hiding to nowhere, being the number two or number three driver at Aston Martin because basically you're just ticking the box for the FIA, you're never gonna get a run. And at least it gives Lance a chance to fly in late, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Also, uh Patrick Awards from the world of IndyCar is replacing Lando Norris in FP1. And again, if you were Lando Norris, you'd think I need as much time behind the wheel as possible to maximize my chances of the world championship.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, this goes back to what we were saying about they're running out of time, they've realized, wow, we've got to put these drivers in. So yeah, Pato Award will go in for for Lando. And the way in the the world of McLaren, I would expect to see a reserve driver stepping in for Oscar in Qatar to sort of even it all out and tick those boxes as well. But yeah, I mean, you know, Pato's pretty good, but it's again, it's a track that they don't have a lot of information on it, changes a lot, and it's not like the you know you've got other events racing there. So it's val it is valuable information that they're missing out on.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, we're about to wrap things up on the podcast. Uh, we're looking forward to the Mexican Grand Prix. Uh Damo, give me your predictions for who's going to have a great weekend, who's going to struggle, who do you think is going to put it on pole?

SPEAKER_00:

I can see it being a Red Bull weekend. I I can see it being a Max Verstappen weekend. He's he's just mentally he's just on a charge and he's just very relaxed. Now that with with the Pato Award situation with McLaren, that might just give Oscar the impetus he needs to get up there. But keep an eye on George Russell as well. The Mercedes is working well in the hot weather these days. And as we've said before, Kimmy is works well when he's not in Europe. So keep the Mercedes in the mix as well. Okie doke, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think I I would have to agree with you about Red Bull. And actually, if you look at the remaining races in the calendar, they're all tracks that Max Verstappen has thrived at in the past. And it's actually nothing that tells me that he's not going to be dominant at every single remaining race weekend, which of course is going to bring the world championship down to the wire in Abu Dhabi, which is going to make for one hell of an exciting race.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and if there is a mathematical chance that Max can take the title when we get to Abu Dhabi, even if he is third in the championship by that point, he has to be the favorite just because of who he is. He has to be the favorite to win the championship. So if he's in with a shot, if he's within 25 points of Oscar or Lando, whom whomever's leading by Abu Dhabi, you've got to put your money on Max.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, you definitely have. Enjoy Mehijo, and uh we'll be back next time to uh review that particular race. Thank you so much, Damien, for joining me on Two Stoff Compounds. Two Stoff Compounds was presented by myself Rick Gorton alongside Damien Reid. The studio engineer and editor was Roy Damonte. The executive producer was Ian Carlisle. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at Two Stuff Compounds. And if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.