Rain Reigns, Championship Changeover, and more as the Championship comes to a head at Interlagos for the Sao Paolo Grand Prix

What happened at the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix?

After what has happened for the past couple of months, the race at Mexico was definitely a surprise. McLaren FINALLY broke through to claim their first win since Oscar Piastri took the checkered flag in August during the Dutch Grand Prix. It was also Lando Norris's first victory since Hungary in the first week of August. However, Lando's result was far from being the most impactful of the weekend.

Before we get to the rest of the results from Mexico City, I want to go over my predictions. On my hot takes, I went 0 for 5, so it obviously wasn't my best weekend. However, I was very close on a couple of them. I predicted Alex Albon to beat his teammate and return to the points, and he was able to defeat Carlos Sainz but couldn't make it to tenth. I also forecasted a bad weekend for Oscar Piastri, and he finished fifth. Unfortunately, I said he would finish outside of the top five. My other three predictions weren't close. Verstappen didn't win by over ten seconds (in fact, he didn't win at all), Racing Bulls couldn't even get a car within a lap of Lando Norris, and we surprisingly still have no announcements regarding Red Bull, Racing Bulls, or Alpine seats.

For me, the second-most exciting news comes in the drivers' championship. Lando Norris retook the lead from his teammate for the first time since April, surpassing Piastri by only a single point. With four rounds to go, Norris sits on 357, and Piastri sits on 356. Even with an underwhelming weekend, Max Verstappen managed to again gain on the Papayas for the fifth straight weekend. The gap between Verstappen and Norris is only 36 points, and 33 points are up for grabs this weekend, meaning if Verstappen wins both events and the McLarens fail to score, first-place Norris will only be ahead of third-place Verstappen by three points with three races left. Talk about exciting!

In other news, OLLIE BEARMAN P4. Yes, you heard that right. Rookie Ollie Bearman, in a Haas, a car ninth in the championship without a podium in ten seasons of existence, almost stood on the podium. The Brit capitalized on a chaotic race start to move up to P6 before overtaking Russell and Antonelli at the same time. Sitting in P5, he went wheel to wheel with his idol Max Verstappen and came out on top to take P4. Above Bearman, Hamilton received a 10-second penalty for cutting a corner on the opening lap, leaving Bearman in P3. However, a successful gamble by Red Bull took Haas's maiden podium away as Ollie finished P4 behind Norris, Leclerc, and Verstappen.

Without further ado, let's get into our predictions.

Podium Predictions

Here are my predictions for the podium finishers at the 2025 Sao Paolo Grand Prix:

Sao Paolo Grand Prix Sprint

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

   
   

2. Lando Norris (McLaren)

   
   

3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

Sao Paolo Grand Prix

1. Lando Norris (McLaren)

   
   

2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

   
   

3. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)

Five Spicy Hot Takes

Now, let’s spice things up with some bold hot takes for the Sao Paolo Grand Prix, rated from 1 to 5 spicy pepper emojis:

1. 🌶️ - Verstappen will win the Sprint. What? Verstappen winning a sprint? Couldn't be...

   
   

2. 🌶️🌶️ - Verstappen closes in on a McLaren. Well, it has happened five straight weekends, but it seems like Lando is figuring it out. However, Oscar remains a mess, and Verstappen will hope to continue to catch up and finally get within a race win of one of the title challengers.

   
   

3. 🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Red Flag on Sunday. It's actually kind of hard to think of a full race at Interlagos without a red flag, but the rain is supposed to come during the sprint. I think there will be a big crash and red flag that forces a standing restart.

   
   

4. 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Someone loses their seat. Something has to happen. It has to happen.

   
   

5. 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ - An excelent weekend for Haas. Bearman's on a roll and should be able to score, and Ocon finished on the podium last year with Alpine. Yeah, he took that piece of garbage to the podium.

Verstappen Closing In, Driver Decisions, and more ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix

What happened at the 2025 United States Grand Prix?

The 2025 United States Grand Prix brought two races: a sprint and a full race. Pole for both? Verstappen. Winner for both? Verstappen. Fastest lap for both? Verstappen...and Antonelli. You really thought. Still, though, what a weekend for the Red Bull star in a car that now looks good enough to win every race through Abu Dhabi. Verstappen now sits only 40 points behind Piastri, a very obtainable margin with five races still remaining and the clearly quicker car.

The sprint was absolute chaos. Nico Hulkenberg caused a ginormous crash into the first turn, knocking out a decent amount of the field, including, most importantly, both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. From there, Verstappen, who was able to escape from the turn unscathed, went on to dominate the sprint, winning the race by over three tenths and never giving up the lead. Russel finished second with another strong weekend and Sainz claimed his second podium of the season with a quiet ascent up to P3.

The race was much calmer, with only one driver DNFing (Sainz) and Verstappen winning by over seven seconds. Tsunoda, Hulkenberg, and Bearman all scored points to round out the top ten, but the more interesting battles were for P2 and P4. Leclerc passed Norris in the opening turn and, with weaker tires and a much slower car, managed to hold off Norris for an extremely long period before finally being passed and finishing with a very deserving podium and P3. Hamilton passed both Piastri and Russell and held P4 above the two to complete a 3-4 weekend for Ferrari at their most successful circuit in the past couple of years.

What happened in FP1 and FP2 in Mexico City?

Free Practice 1 was extremely interesting as it allowed us to get a glimpse of the potential future of F1. Junior and reserve drivers Pato O'Ward (McLaren), Arvid Lindblad (Red Bull), Frederik Vesti (Mercedes), Antonio Fuoco (Ferrari), Jak Crawford (Aston Martin), Luke Browning (Williams), Ayumu Iwasa (Racing Bulls), Ryo Hirakawa (Haas), and Paul Aron (Alpine) all made showings in FP1, with Lindblad even finishing P6. In fact, the only team that didn't replace a driver with a reserve or junior driver was Kick Sauber, who had Bortoleto and Hulkenberg in their FP1 cars.

FP2 gave us much more insight into how this year's grid will fare in Mexico City, as all twenty current drivers were in their respective cars during the session. Verstappen again impressed, topping the timetables with Leclerc and Antonelli following. Tsunoda, Sainz, and both Aston Martins were other noteworthy top-10 finishers in FP2. Outside of the points, however, was a very concerningly slow Oscar Piastri, who was almost an entire second behind Verstappen and in P12.

Podium Predictions

Here are my predictions for the podium finishers at the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix:

Mexico City Grand Prix

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

   
   

2. Lando Norris (McLaren)

   
   

3. George Russell (Mercedes)

Five Spicy Hot Takes

Now, let’s spice things up with some bold hot takes for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, rated from 1 to 5 spicy pepper emojis:

1. 🌶️ - Verstappen will win the race...by over ten seconds. Wait, what? I know, it's such a hot take. Yes, I think that Verstappen is good enough and quick enough to take a huge lead in this Grand Prix. He was almost a second faster than Piastri, who currently leads the Championship, so is it really that unrealistic? I'm starting to think about 2023 at the moment.

   
   

2. 🌶️🌶️ - Piastri misses the top five. Something seems to be going terribly wrong for Oscar Piastri. Yes, the McLaren car is clearly slower than the Red Bull at the moment, but Norris seems to still be turning the woes into decent results. Piastri's last three races? 20th, 4th, and 5th. And this weekend, he looks even slower.

   
   

3. 🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Albon finally scores. As a Williams fan, last weekend was especially difficult to watch. Albon's crash on lap one. Sainz's crash on lap six. Sure, the sprint was decent, but Albon has done nothing in the last few races. Albon's last three results are P13, P14, and P14 again. I think it's time for some points.

   
   

4. 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Both Racing Bulls in the top ten. Lawson and Hadjar have only finished in the top ten together twice, but this feels like the weekend that they get their third double points finish. I don't know why. It just will happen.

   
   

5. 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Lindblad or Aron. I think that either Arvid Lindblad or Paul Aron will be granted a seat in F1 between now and the Sao Paolo Grand Prix in a couple of weekends. Lindblad's more likely, but Colapinto still hasn't scored, and both drivers are knocking on the door. It's only a matter of time.

Championship Climax, Piastri to the Dark Side, Ferrari Fantasy, and more ahead of this weekend's US GP in Austin

Wow, my predictions a couple of weekends were terrible. Piastri definitely didn't win, but there's certainly argument he should have been on the podium (we'll go deep into detail on that later), picking Stroll was probably one of the stupidest things I've ever done, and of course I forgot George Russell existed ahead of the race he performs flawlessly at.

Singapore was, as we expected, nowhere close to being as entertaining as Baku, but it still held its share of surprises. I think it's important to get the winning story out of the way first. Well, GEORGE RUSSELL WON. Yes, I guess it's not that impressive considering that he has already won a race this season and has been one of the best drivers this season relative to his car, but Singapore was not the track Mercedes was supposed to excel at. Street circuits are much better for the MCL39, as their tight corners allow McLaren to take advantage of the car's strong downforce. Still, Russell taking pole and leading the entire race to win was an amazing delivery weeks in the coming for the Englishman.

For me, the more exciting news comes in the drivers' championship. Verstappen again finished the highest out of the three championship contenders and gained points on both Piastri and Norris. However, both Papayas almost crashed out of the race on the first lap when we witnessed an almost exact replica of a situation from the 2018 race when the two Force Indias went into the corner side by side. The difference? Perez forced Ocon into the wall and ended his race, but the combination of Piastri backing off and Norris giving his teammate a little bit of space allowed the two to avoid a collision. Norris was allowed to keep the spot and never let it up on the way to a podium.

Without further ado, let's get into our recap and predictions.

What happened at the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix?

We've already covered most of the storylines, but I wanted to finish up the Piastri story and highlight a couple of other drivers. Piastri could be in for a massive split with McLaren after the past couple of races in which the team has seemed to favor his teammate. In Monza, Norris had a slow pit stop during which he lost his position to Piastri, who was then instructed to give the position back to Norris "for the fairness of the title fight." However, in Singapore, Norris pulled off his dangerous overtake on Piastri to take third but was not instructed to give the position back to Piastri. Things seem to be getting tense between the Aussie and his constructor, and he even disconnected the team radio during the constructors' championship celebration out of frustration.

Elsewhere, Antonelli had another great weekend, finishing in fifth and extending his lead over Albon for seventh in the drivers' championship. Ferrari were able to secure points for both cars, while Bearman and Alonso also scored points finishes. Sainz gained nine and Albon six places in the Williams cars after disqualification that forced them to start at the back of the grid, and the team even took home a single point from a disappointing weekend.

Podium Predictions

Here are my predictions for the podium finishers at the 2025 United States Grand Prix:

United States Grand Prix Sprint

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

   
   

2. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

   
   

3. Lando Norris (McLaren)

United States Grand Prix

1. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

   
   

2. Lando Norris (McLaren)

   
   

3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

Five Spicy Hot Takes

Now, let’s spice things up with some bold hot takes for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, rated from 1 to 5 spicy pepper emojis:

1. 🌶️ - Verstappen will win the Sprint. Max Verstappen is potentially the best race starter and qualifier on the grid, and nothing is more important for a sprint race. Verstappen has won the race three times already at COTA in his career and has traditionally excelled at sprint races. In fact, Verstappen has won over half of the sprint races held. Like, ever.

   
   

2. 🌶️🌶️ - The Papayas don't fight...yet. I know that after a couple of weekends ago this predictions seems a little strange, but I think that Piastri hasn't completely turned to the dark side or become fully selfish yet. I have a feeling he won't need to be battling with Norris as my prediction is that the Aussie will lead most of the race calmly, but I still think that Piastri will follow team orders to not crash into Norris if those orders arrive.

   
   

3. 🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Ferrari get a glimpse of last year. It's hard to remember, but last year Ferrari finished, out of nowhere, 1-2 at the US Grand Prix, with Verstappen in third. It was an outlier, but it is important to remember just how good their two drivers are in the right car and especially at this track. Hamilton has won FIVE times at COTA in his career, which is the record. Ferrari has no chance of what it did last year, but I could see Leclerc on the podium.

   
   

4. 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Someone loses their seat. I want to deviate from racing for just a second. The time is coming for driver lineups to be announced officially for next season, and while the official confirmations are expected in either Mexico City or Sao Paolo, I think something, whether official or a leak, will be revealed this weekend.

   
   

5. 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ - An excelent weekend for Sauber. Maybe not for Hulkenberg, has he hasn't had a good weekend since the magic in Silverstone that delivered him the long-awaited podium, but I think at least for Bortoleto. I think Gabi will finish not only inside of the top ten, but inside of the top five, for his highest career finish.