This week on the Cut to the Race/News from the Nerds podcast, we have a hybrid episode (a show fit for the hybrid era of F1). Together with host James M, Abby and Sam talk through the key parts of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend before turning their attention to the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

Pertaining to Hungary, the trio take a look at the return of Daniel Ricciardo, analysing how he fared on his first weekend back at his old haunt, AlphaTauri.

Dissecting Sergio Perez’s weekend. The Red Bull driver has been under pressure of late, and an incident a matter of minutes into FP1, coupled with another lacklustre qualifying – even if he did make it to Q3 – won’t have helped things. The one saying grace was his recovery to the podium in a ‘driver of the day’ winning performance, but do the panel agree with that?

It was a disastrous first lap for both Alfa Romeo and Alpine. The former saw their superb qualifying erased by Zhou’s poor start and Valtteri getting shuffled out the points. The latter’s race was run by the end of the opening corner – both victims of Zhou’s poor start.

With Ferrari in no-man’s-land and Aston Martin falling back, it looks like it’ll be McLaren vs. Mercedes in the battle to take the fight to Red Bull for the next few races. The panel discuss their weekends before shifting focus to the third sprint weekend of the season, at Spa.

After previewing the weekend, the team cover a couple of topics up for discussion when the F1 commission meets, including engine equalisation and tyre blankets.

https://www.formulanerds.com/news/engine-equalisation-to-be-discussed-at-f1-commission-next-week/

Following that, they turn their attention back to McLaren, who might not yet be done with upgrades and steps forward this season. Can the Woking-based team cement themselves as the rightful number two in F1? Can they dare to challenge this untouchable Red Bulls?
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