MaggottsBeckettsF1

Kimi Antonelli needs ninth place in Mexico City to become the youngest Formula 1 world champion ever, and he can finish lower than that and still take it unless George or Lewis wins the race. Ben's response is to pick Lewis for pole, Lewis for the win and Kimi to DNF, and to call it the most diabolical hopium you've ever witnessed before anyone else could. Tawana has bought the tequila.

Before the picks: a TikTok creator asked whether Kimi's title deserves an asterisk because nobody fought him for it, and we answer that properly. Then the real argument of the week, whether George Russell wanted it badly enough or simply got outbested by the kid in the other car. Also Vesti standing in for Russell in FP1, Lambiase back on Max's radio, Liberty Media's CEO telling fans they don't need to watch every race, three seats still unsigned at Racing Bulls and Haas, Albon's very polite reply to Alonso, and the Austria forfeit cap that is getting burnt on camera at the end of the season.

Then the game: quali picks, race picks, wildcards, Fraud Watch (Sainz stays, Albon is back under observation), who cooks and who fumbles, with the season ledger at seven weekends to four. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Tawana said it last week: Kimi would not win the title in Austin because George would finish above ninth and Lewis above fifth. George finished eighth, Lewis fourth, one position off each. Kimi won from pole on a one-stop while everyone around him stopped twice. Tawana scored 14, Ben scored 10, and Ben's ten-point wildcard is now, in Tawana's words, a minus ten.

The rest of the Austin debrief: Bearman reportedly asking Haas for six million and whether it's too soon, Alonso calling the back of the grid rubbish from sixteenth, Ferrari's free practice dominance that vanishes in Q3, Hadjar refusing to let Max past on the wrong engine map, Sainz holding up the leader and staying on Fraud Watch, Max's new race engineer debuting in the one race where nothing worked, and a virtual safety car that both hosts think was there to extend the storyline.

Mexico is next. P9 seals it, and Tawana has promised a tequila shot on camera the moment it happens. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Ben has put 10 points on Kimi Antonelli winning the world championship in Austin. Tawana opened the episode begging Formula One to stop pushing that exact narrative. One of them is going to be insufferable on Sunday night.

Before the picks: F1 is finally coming to Africa and the boys have thoughts on why it's called the African Grand Prix and not the Rwanda Grand Prix. Rafael Camara is heading to Ferrari and someone in the comments thinks Bearman should be nervous. The Mercedes upgrade was meant to be worth three tenths and isn't. Christian Horner has admitted he pressured Michael Masi in 2021 and Ben is doing his best not to crash out about it. Then a COTA track walk, the wind, the track limits trap from turn 12 to 20, and the first real disagreement the show has had: should the small teams get more than the cost cap gives them?

Quali and race picks, the wildcards, Fraud Watch, who cooks and who fumbles, and a nomination for Afro Broadcast of the Year that neither host applied for.

New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Someone said Lando Norris is a better driver than George Russell and Charles Leclerc, and we lost an hour to it before we even pressed record. So we did the thing properly: all three stat lines side by side, average finishing position, average grid, pole-to-win conversion, the Williams years, the Sauber year, and the one number that ends most of the arguments.

Then we tried to make it fair. Ben's five categories: raw speed, consistency, racecraft, adaptability and mental resilience. Tawana has a hot take on racecraft that Ben answers with Bahrain 2022. We relive Mexico 2024, Baku 2024 and the races that made each of them, and we get into the hate: why Lando gets it, why George gets it, and why Charles somehow never does.

We don't tell you who's best. You tell us. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Max Verstappen swept Singapore: sprint win, pole and his first ever Marina Bay victory. Meanwhile Ferrari sent Lewis out on the wrong plan, left a simple lap-time question unanswered, and Ben lost his mind before we even said hello.

We go from sprint quali to the chequered flag: the FIA's 27-second straight-line mode mess, George spinning out of the sprint lead, Norris taking out Piastri on the last lap, Kimi sneaking to P3, and whether he should clinch the title in Austin. Then the scorecard from our three-way bet with Tyrone, and somebody owes the boys a glaze.

New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

We had someone who was actually there. Tyrone from F1essntls joins us after watching the Sepang chaos from the stands, and he did not come quietly: Lewis is "a cheat code", Leclerc should leave Ferrari, and Hadjar is winning Singapore.

We get into George starting from the back again, Max tying Schumacher on 72 wins with one team, Ocon's Formula E pitch, and F1 finally coming back to Africa. Then it's a three-way predictions battle for a Singapore sprint weekend, where Ben goes full delulu and the loser has to glaze the other two on their story.

New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Tawana wished a DNF on George Russell live on this podcast, and one safety car later George's Mercedes stopped on the start/finish straight. We are not saying it's connected. We are saying be careful what you pray for. Max Verstappen won his first race of 2026 at Sepang, exactly as Ben predicted, and Ben would like everyone to know he was one George away from a perfect scorecard.

The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia gave us a forty minute rain delay, a formation lap where five cars lost power and the FIA called it a bug, Ferrari starting both cars on slicks on a wet track, and Lewis Hamilton dropping from P2 to P17 and coming back to P3 anyway. George's car died again, Mercedes apparently wanted to change the power unit in Baku and didn't, and the gap to Kimi is now 84 points with seven rounds left. Aston Martin scored their best result of the season the one week Tawana bet against them, which he would like to discuss. Loudly.

Then the scorecard (Ben 13, Tawana 4, the Ben curse is officially broken), Fraud Watch week two (Albon stays on, get a pillow), a proper argument about whether Kimi is lucky or whether car go fast, car wins trophies is just the sport, and the FIA president telling Malaysia it needs a five year plan to come back. Singapore is a sprint weekend and it starts Friday. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Max Verstappen has not won a race in 2026. Ben thinks Sepang is where that changes. Tawana thinks Lewis wins it, and since he called Lewis for Barcelona and got it, nobody is laughing this time. Neither of them picks the championship leader, which tells you everything about how weird this season has become.

The Bahrain Grand Prix is being held in Malaysia, the race starts at 9AM Warsaw time, and F1 hasn't been to Sepang since 2017, when the Mercedes was silver and Stroll hit Vettel on the cooldown lap. Only ten drivers on the current grid have raced here. Add a 90 percent chance of rain and 2026 cars that have never done a proper wet race, and the predictions get harder every week. We also get into Ocon officially leaving Haas and who takes the seat, Christian Horner saying Ferrari is the only team he'd join without an ownership stake, Ferrari's "full confidence in Fred" statement, and the FIA leaving Bottas in the wall on the last lap in Baku with no safety car.

Then the picks: quali and race top threes, the five point wildcards (Ben takes rain, Tawana takes an Aston Martin double DNF, because he's a sadistic prick), who cooks, who fumbles, and a brand new segment. Fraud Watch. Albon is the first name on it. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Ben said George fumbles. George won. By 0.196 seconds, over Max, on the line, the closest finish in Formula 1 since 2002. Ben now owes a 6 km run and he said "I'm a runner, guys" on air, so there's no getting out of it.

Baku gave us everything Madrid didn't: Kimi in the wall in Q1 and back to P5, Hadjar on the podium on his first weekend back from injury, Colapinto taking out Gasly and Norris on a restart, Norris calling for a race ban and then apologising, and Piastri going from third on the grid to thirteenth. We get into whether "Kimi is lucky" is a real take or a small memory take, why Colapinto's fans are aiming at the wrong people, and why Stroll still hasn't finished a race and is somehow signed for 2027.

Then the scorecard. Tawana's wildcard was Hadjar points. He got a podium. Ben's was Colapinto points. Tawana 12, Ben 4. Next up is the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang, this weekend. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Tawana picks Max Verstappen to fumble in Baku. Max is also her P2 for the race. She knows. "Thank god this doesn't count." It counts.

After the Madrid protest, Baku is a proper race again: six kilometres, 51 laps, a 2.2 km straight that eats the battery, and a quali session that gave us six red flags last year. Kimi leads by 81, Hadjar is back in the Red Bull, Sepang is next, and Monaco is getting a Sprint in 2027, which Ben would like to discuss with whoever signed that off. We relive our favourite Baku moments (Ricciardo vs Max, "I am stupid," Lewis at the 2021 restart, Perez vs Sainz) before Ben puts Leclerc on pole and Tawana goes full straight line merchant.

Wildcards are Hadjar points vs Colapinto points, the cooks and fumbles are in, and the forfeit is one lap of Baku on foot. Race is Saturday, quali is Friday. New episodes every race week. Everything else at maggottsbecketts.org

Four overtakes. Four. Tawana and Ben recorded this entire episode in sleep masks as a protest, because the first Madrid Grand Prix was the biggest snooze fest of the season, and yes, that includes Monaco.

The autopsy: quali was brilliant (Lando on pole brushing the wall, Kimi P2), then the race gave us one good turn. Lewis takes his first DNF of the season with brake failure after a lap 1 squeeze from Max that has Ben pulling out Jeddah 2021 receipts. Stroll parks it a car length from the gap, the VSC drags on, and McLaren pit Lando into oblivion and fumble a certain win. Kimi picks up the pieces, win number eight, 81 points clear, and even he says it should have been Lando's.

Then the scoring (Tawana 10, Ben 8, both wildcards hit) and the main event: armed with their own track editor, the hosts redesign the Madring live. Delete turn 5A. Widen everything. Send the invoice to the FIA. You can build your own fix at http://maggottsbecketts.org.

Heads up: Baku race day is SATURDAY, not Sunday. New episodes every race week.

Nobody has ever raced this track. Madrid is on the calendar, F3 managed 19 DNFs on it, and Tawana and Ben are predicting completely blind, so this week the rules change: each host must pick a podium trio they have never picked before. Lindblad P3 gets said out loud. So does Gasly.

Before the chaos: the standings after Monza have Kimi on 267 and George sounding beaten ("the gap is just too big now" — has Monza broken him?), the Rosberg conspiracy about those 50 laps on hards gets picked apart, Ferrari quietly banked a 200km filming day at Madring as the only team to see the track, and Vasseur finally admits team orders are on the table.

Then the walkthrough: 22 corners, two tunnels, a 550 meter banked monster called La Monumentale, and almost nowhere to overtake. Wildcards: Ben says one of the big four ends up in the wall, Tawana says Sainz and Alonso score nothing at home. The home race curse is undefeated.

New episodes every race week. Everything else at http://maggottsbecketts.org

He started P19. He won the race. Tawana and Ben lose their minds over Kimi Antonelli's 25-overtake charge at Monza, the most overtakes ever recorded in a single Grand Prix, from a 19 year old leading the championship.

Also in the wreckage: Gasly takes a shock pole by two tenths, Leclerc and Hamilton go wheel to wheel at turn 1 before Leclerc crashes out at Parabolica on lap 3 (2020 flashbacks, anyone?), and the post-race quotes are pure poison. Ben officially pulls George Russell out of the title conversation, Mercedes pulls team orders again exactly as predicted, and Ferrari's strategy leaves everyone asking the same question: communication, when?

Then the scoring: Ben's team orders wildcard lands for 5 points, Aston Martin's double DNF destroys Tawana's banker, and the bet finally claims its first victim. Ben 6, Tawana 5, and Tawana now owes Lance Stroll a public apology letter. Yes, really. Next stop: Madrid, a track nobody has ever raced.

New episodes every race week. Everything else at http://maggottsbecketts.org

Kimi Antonelli leads the championship and starts dead last at his home race. Welcome to Monza.

Tawana and Ben size up the Temple of Speed: 11 races in 14 weeks left, two braking zones, battery games and super clipping, Ferrari debuting yet another engine at home, and the standings after Zandvoort (Kimi 242, George and Lewis tied on 183). There's a Monaco 22 flashback into Ferrari's broken telephone radio problem, one take worth framing (back Lewis or lose your only shot), and the big question: does Toto pull team orders on George again?

Then the predictions: full quali and race top threes, five-point wildcards (Aston ahead of a customer engine, team orders at Merc, Ferrari or McLaren), who cooks, who fumbles, and the bet finally gets stakes. The loser posts a public apology video to the driver they slander most.

Esteban and Lance, one of you is getting a very nice message soon.

New episodes every race week. Everything else at http://maggottsbecketts.org

The last-ever Dutch Grand Prix went out with a BANG — and we have questions.

Norris goes back-to-back at Zandvoort, lap 1 was pure carnage (smoke, spins, Max on the grass), and Mercedes pulled the mid-race swap that has us heated: Merc was right to ask… but should George have said no? We also get into Max signing to 2030, Ferrari's radio problem ("you have the data, dog"), Alonso appearing in P9 like a polar bear in a forest, rusty post-break pit crews, and Bortoleto casually hitting 360 km/h.

Then it's scoreboard time — the closest bet we've ever had, decided by ONE point, with hot sauce shots on the line (postponed, conveniently). Plus: SuperSport followed us and we lost our minds, and we pick which driver we'd actually want to interview.

Zandvoort, it's been real. See you at Monza. Peace. ✌️

F1 2026 Dutch Grand Prix predictions — and it's the last ever Dutch GP at Circuit

Zandvoort. A sprint weekend, a 60% chance of rain, and Kimi Antonelli 50 points

clear. Nobody has any data. We predicted it anyway.

Tawana and Ben are back from the summer break for episode 29 of MaggottsBeckettsF1,

and Zandvoort has handed them the hardest predictions weekend of the 2026 season:

one hour of practice before anything counts, a sprint on Saturday, rain in the

forecast, and a set of 2026 cars that have never turned a wheel in a proper wet

race. No data. All opinions.

Kimi Antonelli leads Lewis Hamilton by 50 points heading into the second half of

the season. Max Verstappen gets one final home race in front of the orange wall.

Honda have brought a new power unit specification for Aston Martin. Cadillac have

replaced their team principal mid-season. And with barely a handful of drivers

signed for 2027, silly season is about to get very loud.

In this episode:

- Antonelli's 50-point championship lead, and whether anyone can actually close it

- Honda's new power unit spec for Aston Martin, and who becomes the new back marker

- Cadillac sacking their team principal, and why it might be far too soon

- Rain at Zandvoort: what happens when cars with no downforce hit that banking wet

- Losing historic tracks — is Monaco next?

- Silly season 2027: almost nobody is actually signed

- Are we putting McLaren back in the title conversation too early?

- Full predictions for sprint qualifying, the sprint race, qualifying and the race

- Wildcards, who cooks, who fumbles the bag, and a three-shots-of-hot-sauce forfeit

The 2026 Dutch Grand Prix runs 20-23 August at Circuit Zandvoort. Our reaction

episode lands after the race.

New episodes every race week. Watch the video version on YouTube and play the

games on our site — links below.

YouTube: [YOUTUBE LINK]

Website and games: [WEBSITE LINK]

Support the show: [BUY US A COFFEE LINK]

The 2026 mid-season driver tier list is here. Tawana and Ben rank all 22 F1 drivers from E tier to S+, judged on one thing: expectations vs. delivery.

It gets spicy fast: a reigning title contender is handed a D, Max Verstappen sits winless on a C+, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg get the retirement talk, and the Williams teammates are separated by a single point and a Hungary incident nobody can brush under the rug. On the other end, rookie Arvid Lindblad crashes the S tier, Franco Colapinto is officially "your dependable Prius," Lewis Hamilton overdelivers on everyone's expectations, and Kimi Antonelli — leading the championship in his second season — earns a grade that doesn't officially exist: S+.

MaggottsBeckettsF1 is F1 news the way fans actually talk about it — weekly Formula 1 news, fan reactions, race predictions, and unfiltered F1 paddock chat from two fans, zero filters. Think we butchered your favourite? Come argue. Last week's team tier list is in the feed, and "44 Laps of Pain" is coming soon. 👀

Follow @MaggottsBeckettsF1 on Instagram and TikTok.

Our f1 mid season review with receipts: in February we predicted George wins the championship and Williams finishes P5.

The actual championship leader was not in our top five, and Williams is ninth with 11 points. So this is us grading every F1 team from S to E at the summer break, and the grades get personal — one team gets a straight E, the Ferrari debate nearly ends the show, and only one team earns an A.

Proper f1 fan discussion and f1 paddock news: the Norris 14-second receipt, why nobody gives Lewis his flowers, the silly season around Red Bull's second seat, and week one of Ben living with Lance Stroll as his phone wallpaper.

Formula 1 fan reactions and f1 motorsport chat every week from Maggotts & Becketts, even on break. Wallpapers and games at http://maggottsbecketts.org. Support the show: http://buymeacoffee.com/maggottsbeckettsf1

Quick note- this one is different folkes.

The Hungary bet ended 10-10 and we never made a tiebreaker rule — so this is a full f1 trivia special settled with the games we built ourselves: The Know-It-All (guess the F1 driver) and Paddock Feud (F1 family feud). The stakes: the loser makes Lance Stroll their phone wallpaper until summer break ends.

Shown in every video. No mercy.

What follows is the most humbling f1 fan discussion we've ever recorded: forgetting the Honey Badger, the Hulk AND Mad Max, calling the movie Rush "Heated", blanking on every 1990s champion, and one of us guessing our own channel name as a famous corner. Three tiebreakers later, someone's phone belongs to Lance Stroll.

Formula 1 fan reactions, f1 motorsport chat and games every race week from Maggotts & Becketts.

Play The Know-It-All and Paddock Feud yourself at http://maggottsbecketts.org

Your f1 news and paddock news debrief from the Hungarian GP: Norris steals pole by 0.012 seconds and wins in free air, Piastri's gearbox quits while he's leading, and the FIA hands out a penalty for 0.1 kph while backmarkers nearly decide the title fight.

Proper f1 fan discussion this week: the blue flag anarchy nobody got punished for, Russell's anti-stall disaster, Verstappen's dive-bomb on Hamilton, Hadjar playing rear-gunner for Red Bull, and whether Max belongs on fraud watch. Plus our formula 1 predictions scored live — and for the first time ever, the bet ends in a dead tie. The tiebreaker is its own episode, and it goes badly for one of us.

Formula one news, formula 1 fan reactions and f1 motorsport chat every race week from Maggotts & Becketts. Play our F1 games at http://maggottsbecketts.org