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 F1 podcast presented by Harry Ead, Sam Sage, and me Ben Hocking in this agonising one month break in between races.

But that agony has subsided at least for a day because I get to see both of your beautiful faces. Gosh, isn't that delightful? Isn't he so sweet to us, Harry? Yeah, you should see it off camera. The funny thing is, I was told by the nice podcast person to not look to my left to talk to Harry's time. Salam's not. She never have given that instruction. As an autistic man, I have to follow the rules immediately. Sam, we've just fallen out for today. Sam's not looking at me. You're not here. You know Dwight when he shuns, Andy? Shunk. Unshunt. I shunk. Yeah, podcast stuff. Formula One. Yeah. Podcast stuff. Yeah. What's that being in the world of podcasting today? We won't talk about Formula One.

Got enough time to fill.

Well, we've decided with this one month gap that we've got an opportunity to talk through

a few different things whilst there's no racing to chat through.

And one of them is the 2027 driver lineup, our predictions for what the grid is going

to look like next year.

Good time to do it because there aren't actually that many contracts confirmed yet for

27.

There are some and we know that even with contracts in place sometimes, shenanigans in the

transfer window can go a bit crazy.

So we're going to go through all 11 teams, see where we're similar, see where we're

different.

If you are listening along at home and you've got a piece of paper nearby, maybe jot down

the teams, jot down the drivers, see who you're closest to in terms of your predictions

compared to the three of us.

We're going to go in championship order

as they are right now, which means we start with the championship leaders, that being Mercedes.

Very good start to 2026. And I'm sure there are a number of drivers that would like to be in

that Mercedes seat for next year. Kimmy Antonelli has a contract up until the end of 2026.

...