Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast.

Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday.

Hello and a very warm welcome to the late-breaking F-1 podcast presented by Harry Eid, Sam Sage, and me, Ben Hocking.

It's a Wednesday.

Sadly, there's no race this weekend, but it doesn't mean we're not here for some F-1

chat, Sam.

Thank you, F-1 chat.

Some good news. I meant more like I said like, excuse me to talk about not good day. It's a big day for us. Podcast day. Yay! That is good news, actually. Oh, no, the Father Christmas of birthdays is not here right now. Yeah, great stuff. Pl Plenty things to go through. Lots of chit chat. So good topics to discuss. And Harry Eag's here. So it's a bleming great day. Hello, everyone. Pleased to be here on this non-F-1 Wednesday to talk more F-1. Ben, what are we talking about F-1- related? Well, thank you for asking, mate. I really

appreciate that. Welcome. You are welcome. Coming up on today's schedule, we've got a game of

back and forth. We know the people love that. We've got talk of the new Baku deal. So we've

just had a race in Azerbaijan, but we'll be continuing to race there until 2030.

The sprint calendar has been revealed for 2026. Our thoughts on that a little bit later on.

But we forward to start this episode with Red Bull, who are coming off two straight wins for

Vastappan and indeed the team. And it's the first time since Spain and Canada of last year that they've

been able to do that.

It means for Stappen is now 44 points behind Lando Norris and 69 points behind Oscar Piastri.

But in the constructors, even if you don't think the driver's championship is a battle yet,

in the constructors, Red Bull, whilst they are still P4, they are now just 14 points

behind Ferrari and 18 behind Mercedes. So it seems like that battle for P2 has re-emerged.

Now, Sam, it's not long ago that Vostappen was finishing 9th in Hungary, and now he's back-to-back

pretty dominant wins. Do they have reason, they being Red Bull,

do they have reason to be optimistic going into the future? It's tricky, isn't it? Because

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