Paddock stories | Max Verstappen's win | Lewis Hamilton's error | FIA delays | 2026 Singapore GP

Soumil Arora (0:00)

Welcome to the Singapore Grand Prix Review on the Inside Line F1 Podcast. Or should we say, the most exciting review of the most boring race out there. Because literally nothing happened. I was at one point struggling in the commentary box because I was looking up to the gods and being, come on, is this the race you're gonna give me today? Like nothing more? And Kunal, you spent a lot of money, travelled across the world, got in the paddock, created some beautiful interactions for the national broadcast of Fan Code, which included Arjun Kapoor, the Bollywood actor, meeting Pedro de la Rosa, the Aston Martin reserve driver.

Kunal Shah (0:38)

He's officially the team ambassador.

Soumil Arora (0:40)

Team ambassador! The reserve driver term always sticks in my mind because growing up he was that for a lot of teams.

Kunal Shah (0:46)

It was him and Mark Janay.

Soumil Arora (0:48)

Exactly, exactly. So you did that, you got a special painting from your daughter in Kimi Antonelli's driver room. You got a message from Nico Hulkenberg, da-da-da.

So much, so much, Kunal.

Kunal Shah (1:03)

There was a lot. Yes, absolutely. There was, it was a fantastic weekend. Yes, spent a lot of money but also spent a lot of time.

Soumil Arora (1:10)

By the way, you posted that. So I'm not revealing anything new. You posted about it.

Kunal Shah (1:17)

Well, Mercedes posted about it and then I just reposted it. So I was also being politically correct. But I was in three time zones, like I said in the preview, I got to Mumbai this afternoon and I'm still in buzzed time zone. But either way, I mean, it was a decent race. It got amplified by Lewis Hamilton calling his own strategy. It got amplified by Max Verstappen not having the radio. And then the biggest meme of it all, that Max and GP without the radio still called strategy better than Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton with the radio. Now, of course, people are going to bounce on to Lewis as they do, seven time world champion. And there was a lot of radio disturbance. So Ferrari is saying we issued a message.

Fans didn't hear it. It didn't get captured on the onboard. Lewis said he ignored or he said he was too late for the pit lane. So either he heard it late or he probably just decided, no, I don't think it's right to come in.

And then he decided to take the medium tire. So various things happened, which, you know, Soumil, otherwise in a classic Formula 1 race, we would get excited by these things. Tire, you know, a driver in the top three, starting on a different tire, trying to go long. But there are weird scenarios where the soft tire is actually lasting longer than the medium. And that's just what's catching so many of us out.

Soumil Arora (2:43)

And I hate that.

It's very tough being the tire manufacturer for a championship like Formula 1, because firstly you need to meet all the safety demands, which are so tough, because these cars are the fastest in the world. So for Pirelli, it's a huge challenge to go across so many different circuits, across temperatures, across climates, across types of tarmac, to make these safe and raceable tires. But then once they've done that, Kunal, which we now have understood that Pirelli can do that very well, it comes to the point of creating good racing, which this year, honestly, these tires have not done, like nothing happened. The softs last half the race?

Kunal Shah (3:19)

The softs are lasting half the race.

And I mean, you know, it's causing a bit of a paddock headache, if you may call it that. But strategists are wondering what on earth is happening in itself. And the tires are like balloons and so on. But I guess it is what it is. And you know, I think it all got accentuated by the fact that it's a sprint weekend, you do fewer laps. Can you imagine if somebody would have taken on the hard? Maybe they were still driving around the streets of Singapore, who knows?

Soumil Arora (3:49)

I swear, how weird would that have been? It's just odd. It's just odd that nothing happened. And then on top of that, Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari felt that they could engineer a different strategy. They started on the mediums, hoping that it would pay off and at least help them do slightly something different compared to the opposition. But that couldn't happen. And on the medium compound tires, Hamilton was struggling towards the end of his stint, may be accentuated by the heavier fuel loads and everything around that, I don't know. But then when Lewis Hamilton was asking for information, Kunal, barely anything came. He was asking what the times were for people on the end of their stints and Ferrari got that information messed up and at the end nothing happened. So, no, it's not always useful to call your own shots at Ferrari as everyone makes you believe.