The former F1 executive believes the World Drivers’ Championship is still up for grabs, with Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen all fighting for the title.
In our exclusive interview, F1 pundit and former executive Mark Gallagher discusses the Mexican Grand Prix, the World Drivers’ Championship race – with Lando Norris now the favourite in the F1 betting – and Lewis Hamilton’s performance for Ferrari.
What did you make of the Mexico GP and what it means for the title race with Lando Norris now leading Oscar Piastri?
I know Max got a podium, but he didn’t get that win, so it kind of eases the pressure a little bit on the team at McLaren. I think the first thing is that it was clearly an incredibly strong weekend for Lando.
I thought the pace behind was particularly impressive. It shows what he can do when he puts his head down and pulls it all together and is very, very strong. He’s certainly been stronger than Oscar in the last couple of weeks, and I think that the race in Mexico obviously was pretty tumultuous with everything that went on.
But my own view is that stewards’ decisions have the habit of balancing out over time. Sometimes you get a break, sometimes you don’t. I thought what Max did at Turn 1 was incredible. I think, like everyone, when you see four Formula One cars trying to go side by side, you know there’s going to be a shock.
I think it’s actually incredible that Max and Charles Leclerc didn’t have a big accident. I don’t quite know how they all managed to control the cars across the grass – it was incredible. So, although there was, as usual, a lot of hysteria after the race about whether it should have been penalised or not, I personally don’t like to see penalties unless they’re really deserved.
The stewards look at all the evidence, and they are the experts, and they have to make a decision. It’s always going to be divisive. So, I thought that it was very exciting behind, but Lando’s performance was outstanding. I think there’s a tendency, when you have a result like that, for the world to immediately say, “Norris is in the ascendancy, the master of McLaren.”
I think, if Oscar corrects things in Brazil, the pendulum could swing back the other way. The reality is, a lot depends on how the guys deal with the pressure. I think Oscar Piastri has had an inconsistent performance, which he’s made some interesting comments about. I’m sure that he and his engineer, and the team, will be trying to find out the reasons for that.
If he’s not comfortable – which he hasn’t been, with the way the car is handling – then he’s not going to get the best out of himself or the car, and that very much looked to be the case in Mexico. He just wasn’t making the progress that you’d expect him to make if he was at one with the car. So something has happened there which has taken away his confidence a little bit – not mentally so much as his driving confidence in getting the most out of the car – and that’s something he needs to fix.
I think it’s even-stevens between those two at the moment, although the tide may swing either way. I think Max’s recovery was unbelievable. As we’ve seen before, sometimes the greatest champions produce drives that don’t get them the win, but which become very memorable. I think of Michael Schumacher’s last race in Brazil for Ferrari, I just remember it was one of those days where he knew he wasn’t going to win, so he decided to enjoy himself and just showed everyone what a fantastic driver he was. Max did that in Mexico. He is quite a weapon.
I don’t think Max’s championship hopes are over yet, because if he gets a win in Brazil – which is not the unlikeliest possibility, it’s a track he has shown well at before and he loves every garage there – he could power the gap again. The thing that the team really needs to avoid is both cars not finishing in any race.
If they have a DNF, Max is going to be the one who jumps on that, and that’s what keeps it really fascinating. It’s a shame what happened at the end of the race in Mexico with the Virtual Safety Car – probably a mistake – it ruined the race, I think, for everybody. But I thought McLaren took it pretty well, considering. I do think Lando could have been taken on the last lap, which would have been incredible, but anyway, it wasn’t to be. The FIA sometimes have to err on the side of caution – sometimes too much so – but safety comes first.
The overall picture from Mexico was very close. It’s nice to see the Ferraris being okay. Lewis and Charles were trying to get there, and I mean, clearly not winning, but being competitive similarly with Carlos Sainz. And then the final thing – Oliver Bearman – that was a superb performance from him.
It was really great to see and noteworthy for him. If he can keep his head down and continue to make progress like that, he’ll find himself in a top drive before long.
Does it have any similarities to when you had Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton competing, and Kimi Raikkonen won the title out of nowhere? Do you see any similarities there?
I mean, there’s that comparison, but there’s also the comparison with when Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet in the 1980s were driving for Williams, and they were going at each other hammer and tongs. The championship that time was decided, I think, by one point.
The reality is that this is the ultimate dilemma for a Formula One team: when you’ve got two drivers who are both very good, they are inevitably going to run into a bit of conflict, particularly if they’re both very, very competitive – which Oscar and Lando are. I mean, one thing about teams like Mercedes, for example, when they had Valtteri Bottas alongside Lewis Hamilton – let’s be frank – Valtteri was a good driver, but even he would admit that he was unable to match Lewis on a consistent basis, and therefore Lewis had ultimate No. 1 supremacy within the team.
We don’t have that at McLaren. The difference in performance between the two drivers is not big enough. I think Lando will be reflecting on the fact that he’s had, at times, an untidy season, which hasn’t helped. But look, the two McLaren drivers are definitely like Alonso and Lewis – it’s a very similar issue: highly competitive, neck and neck, and more likely to swing either way in the championship.
Teamwork begins to go out the window when that happens. And as you say, they handed what was effectively the World Championship title to Kimi Raikkonen in hindsight. I think it’s a really tall order for McLaren to not win the Drivers’ Championship, as I said earlier. It really will take one of them not finishing races. If a shunt or a DNF happens, Max could take extra wins. And if that was to happen, it would be sensational.
You could have a sensational final race of the season – and it’s not completely impossible – but on the balance of probability, I think McLaren will [win]. They just need to be really careful as well that the drivers don’t run into each other, because if they had a double DNF where neither scored points and Max got a win, suddenly McLaren would be under massive pressure.
The great thing for Max at the moment is that, in some ways, he can’t really lose, no matter what happens. If he doesn’t win a race or if he has a bad weekend, it doesn’t matter – he’s not expected to win the championship. But if he has a sensational win, takes some risks, and it all works out, then he’s right back in it. Max has, I think, the least pressure of anyone – and yet he has the most to gain from taking the kind of risks that Lando and Oscar can’t afford to.
Who is favourite to win the F1 World Championship?
My view has changed slightly towards Lando – unless Oscar can return to his comfort with the car that he had until the middle of September. I think if what we’ve seen is a fundamental change in his confidence with the car – and he talked to the media about it, saying he hasn’t been able to drive it the way he wants and has been having to drive around it – that’s a real problem.
If something has changed, then it’s going to ruin his chances of winning a World Championship. There’s been a shift – the shift is both in terms of Lando coming on stronger, but also Oscar having a bigger gap in performance to Lando. It’s quite concerning to see that. There’s lots of speculation – people accuse McLaren of favouritism towards Norris – but personally, from a professional point of view, I don’t ever believe the team sets out to fix results for one driver over another.
It’s undesirable from many perspectives. However, if in helping Lando to achieve more consistent results, Oscar’s results have become less consistent, then therein lies the shift. My own view is that, all things being equal, I think Oscar still has a slight advantage mindset-wise to win the World Championship.
If Oscar keeps his composure – though there’s still doubt after Mexico – if Lando Norris can repeat what he did in Mexico City, then Oscar would be looking pretty desolate, and the championship could be settled before we even get to Abu Dhabi.
Do you think Lando wins the title, with Oscar second and Max third?
I think so, only because I don’t think we should now say, “Oh, Norris is the favourite because he had an amazing weekend.” You need every weekend to be amazing to win the World Championship, and it’s really quite striking that since the summer we’ve seen a slight slump in McLaren’s performance.
It’ll be really interesting to see what happens in Brazil, because I regard that as a drivers’ circuit. It always produces really great races and it’s a track that rewards confidence in the car. So we’ll see who comes out of this one again – and if Lando took another incredible victory, then he’d be a worrying one for Oscar and his manager Mark Webber.
Lewis Hamilton has said he is finally “feeling on top of the car” as a Ferrari driver, but can you see improvements?
It’s kind of nice, obviously, because last month he was saying, “Maybe it’s me, the driver, maybe I’m not what I used to be,” but now he seems really positive. This is really good to see in some ways.
But you know what Lewis is like – he’s hard on himself. When he’s down, he can be quite self-critical.
I think – and I’ve said before – the only real surprise for me about this year is the extent of expectation around Lewis winning. You’re talking about someone who’s been a World Champion for nearly two decades.
Ferrari had a race-winning car in 2023 and 2024, and I was astounded by how strong I thought Ferrari were on the up. But this year has been really disappointing with the car. It’s not been as competitive as McLaren, it’s not been as competitive as Red Bull – and even when Red Bull have had problems, Ferrari still haven’t capitalised.
So the fact is, it’s been a very tough year because the car is just not there. If you’re trying to challenge the competition and win races, and Lewis is finishing short of fourth or fifth, you can kind of understand the frustration.
The reality is that the car is just not capable of great victories. It’s taken Lewis a long time, quite naturally, because he has to learn all of the idiosyncrasies of Ferrari. As he’s said to the media, everything at Ferrari is different – the car, the steering, the ergonomics, how it feels, how it drives, the powertrain – everything. It’s a whole new world, and because of the lack of testing in modern Formula One, that’s a really significant change from 30 years ago.
As a driver getting into a new car, you have no chance to test – you’re learning in front of everyone on the weekend. So, it’s good that he feels better in the car now, and he certainly looked a bit more at one with himself as the race went on in Mexico, and hopefully that continues.
But the problem, time is not on his side. When you lose a year, which is how Lewis will have to regard this year, you can’t really afford that. So, it’s a real shame. It would have been so much better if he’d arrived at Ferrari and immediately found a race-winning, competitive car and challenged for the championship. But this year is gone. And it’s starting to feel like he’s only got one or two more chances to live and dream at the top of Formula One.
I for one, hope he doesn’t do what Fernando’s done – I hope he doesn’t continue if he’s not sure he’s competitive, because he’s already proven everything there is to prove as a driver. We all know that he ought to be an eight-time World Champion – except for Michael Masi.
Do you think the controversial ending to 2021 where he missed out on an eighth world title has taken some of Lewis’ motivation from F1?
I actually think you’re right to say that, because Toto and Susie Wolff were speaking at an event in London this week, and I’m sure you read some of the comments online afterwards. What happened in Abu Dhabi is still very raw for everybody involved.
I not only agree with your point in regards to Lewis, I actually think what happened in Abu Dhabi 2021 may well have played a role in pretty much everything that’s happened since, including Mercedes’ performance, and I might be talking out of my backside when I say that, but the reality is, I find it incredible that since Abu Dhabi, Mercedes have never been able to recapture their past form.
I think part of that might be down to everyone being so deflated. And in Mercedes’ case, maybe they decided to take some risks with the 2022 car that didn’t work out – and instead of backtracking, they dug deeper with the 2023 car, and that still wasn’t competitive. They’re still good, but not great, and you can see it written all over Toto Wolff’s face.
I mean, he’s been hurting for four years because he hates being beaten – and the same with Lewis.
So, the psychology of what happened in Abu Dhabi will probably be understood more fully in time. But I think for Lewis, it’s a double whammy, because not only did he not get that eighth title, but he’s never again been in a car capable of giving it to him. So somehow, that’s salt in the wound.
If he’d come back in 2023 with a dominant Mercedes and won the eighth title, it would have been great – everyone would have moved on. But the opposite has happened. Abu Dhabi may literally have been the last chance he ever had to win an eighth title, and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s ever going to happen at Ferrari.
