Red Bull Racing were at a crossroads when Laurent Mekies took over as Team Principal halfway through 2025. After a difficult first half of the season, should they continue working on their 2025 car or write that year off and prioritise the new regulations for 2026?
Their decision to stay focussed on the ‘25 car paid off, with Max Verstappen going from more than 100 points behind to missing out on the title by just two points. But in this new era of Formula 1, Red Bull have fallen down the pecking order after a difficult start to the season.
Speaking to Tom Clarkson, Laurent explains why they didn’t switch full focus to 2026 earlier and whether they’re now paying the price for last year’s turnaround.
Laurent also talks about how different his experience as a Team Principal is at Red Bull compared to Racing Bulls. He shares insight into what Max Verstappen is like outside of the car, the Dutchman’s future with the team and how Isack Hadjar is settling into his new surroundings.

Plus, with Red Bull making their own power units for the first time this year, Laurent tells Tom why he describes their Powertrains project as a ‘crazy challenge’ that only a team like Red Bull could take on.

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Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu is Tom Clarkson’s guest on this week’s F1 Beyond The Grid.
Ayao has been with Haas since their debut season 10 years ago, but he’s only been in charge since 2024. What has he learned about leadership in that time? How did he guide the team’s recovery from such a difficult start last season? And what are Haas’ targets in the new era of Formula 1?
As for the drivers, Ayao tells Tom what he wants to see from Esteban Ocon this year and how long they can hold on to Ollie Bearman if his eye-catching performances continue.

Ayao also reveals a lot about his relationship with owner Gene Haas and what Toyota bring to the table as the team’s technical partner.

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The son of a motorsport legend, a racer since childhood, Formula 1 was Jacques Villeneuve's destiny. In 1996, the young Canadian arrived at his first Grand Prix and immediately proved he belonged there by taking pole position.

In his rookie season Villeneuve won races, went wheel-to-wheel with Michael Schumacher and took Williams teammate Damon Hill to a final race title-decider. 30 years on, he sits down with Tom Clarkson to remember how he shook up the sport.

Jacques explains why he left IndyCar as reigning champion to join Williams in Formula 1, and how racing on ovals influenced how he drove Grands Prix. He talks about working with race engineer Jock Clear, and experimenting with his throttle pedal and steering wheel paddles to find extra performance.

Tom asks Jacques about the highlights of his first year in F1: his first pole position, his first race win and the spectacular pass he made on Michael Schumacher - an overtaking move still regarded as one of the best in F1 history.

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The newest team in Formula 1 are here to compete. Cadillac have earned the respect of their rivals. Now they’re pushing to get faster.
CEO Dan Towriss takes Tom Clarkson back to the start of the story - how he and his TWG Motorsports company first became involved in discussions about F1, conversations with General Motors and Cadillac, the work to build a team, choosing their race drivers and making their F1 debut in Australia.
Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas are the first Cadillac F1 drivers. What do they bring to a new team? What does the future hold for the team’s reserve driver, IndyCar star Colton Herta?

And what are the team’s aims in their first season? The learning curve is steep at the pinnacle of motorsport, but as Dan says, ‘no part of this should be easy’.

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Five years after Carlos Sainz left McLaren, his former team and his former teammate are the reigning Formula 1 World Champions. As he watched Lando Norris reach the summit of world motorsport, did he ever think ‘that could have been me?’.  
Speaking to Tom Clarkson, Carlos reflects on leaving McLaren and becoming a race winner with Ferrari before joining Williams. He remembers feeling ‘powerless’ during a difficult start to the 2025 season, and reveals the work which led him to stand on the podium later in the year.
Carlos gives his first impressions of the 2026 F1 cars and explains why he wants to use the ‘peak’ of his career to take Williams back to the top.

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A title fight full of twists and turns, a new World Champion, rookies reaching major milestones and Formula 1 on the big screen.
The 2025 season was nothing short of dramatic on and off track. Here, on F1 Beyond The Grid, Tom Clarkson has sat down with the people in the thick of all that drama and in this end-of-year special, Tom picks out his highlights.
You’ll hear from the new World Champion Lando Norris, who reveals how he changed his mental approach to racing, and his race engineer Will Joseph. Lando’s title rival and teammate Oscar Piastri explains how he made so much progress from 2024 to 2025. And McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Team Principal Andrea Stella tell us how they’ve managed to get Lando and Oscar to buy into the team’s racing philosophy.
Away from the champions, Isack Hadjar reflects on how he bounced back from a nightmare F1 debut in Australia. Esteban Ocon and his race engineer Laura Mueller explain how they’ve built a relationship in their first year working together at Haas. And Valtteri Bottas tells Tom why he’s got unfinished business with F1 ahead of his return with Cadillac in 2026.
From the cockpit to the pitwall, Williams Team Principal James Vowles shares his pride after Carlos Sainz secured the team’s first podium since 2021 and Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur gives his thoughts on Lewis Hamilton’s first year in red.
Plus, four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel reflects on the highs and lows of his career and Hollywood icon Brad Pitt reminisces on what it was like becoming F1 driver Sonny Hayes for F1: The Movie.
Thank you for listening in 2025. F1 Beyond The Grid will return in 2026.
To hear the full interviews with the guests featured in this show, click on the links below…
Lando Norris 
Oscar Piastri
 
Andrea Stella + Zak Brown
Helmut Marko 
Fred Vasseur
James Vowles 
Brad Pitt 

Sebastian Vettel

As Formula 1 enters an exciting new era of fast, thrilling and sustainable racing in 2026, what can we expect on track?
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff, and Managing Director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, Hywel Thomas, explain how the new power units and advanced sustainable fuels will enhance performance and demand different skills from the drivers and teams.
Toto and Hywel tell Tom Clarkson how they feel on the eve of this new rule cycle compared to 2014, when they went on to win eight Constructors’ World Championships in a row, and what they make of rumours in the paddock pitching them as pre-season favourites.
You’ll also hear their thoughts on how George Russell and Kimi Antonelli performed in 2025 and what they can achieve in the coming years.


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2025 has been a year of firsts for Laura Mueller and Esteban Ocon.
For Laura, it’s her first season as a race engineer. For Esteban, it’s his first season with Haas. And it’s their first time working with each other.
So how are they finding it? What do they need from one another to get the best out of each other? And how do they communicate in and out of the car?
Speaking to Tom Clarkson, Laura and Esteban take us inside their first year working together and how the relationship between a race engineer and an F1 driver works.
They provide fascinating insight into how they talk to each other on team radio – explaining when the right time to speak during a lap is, how often they should speak and why that can change in different scenarios.
Laura and Esteban also reflect on the highs and lows of this year – including how they bounced back from a challenging season-opener in Melbourne to score points in China the week after.
And you’ll hear all about Laura’s path to becoming F1’s first female race engineer and the childhood hero who inspired this journey.


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Winning four Formula 1 World Championships is a feat only six elite drivers have achieved. Competing under the highest pressure, year after year, has given Sebastian Vettel rare racing insight. Since retiring from the sport in 2022, he’s been raising awareness of causes he cares about, and reflecting on his career – the peaks, how he learned to balance risks and rewards, and the years where his competitive fire started to fade.
The four-time World Champion looks back at his life on the F1 grid with Tom Clarkson. He gives his thoughts on the three drivers racing for the 2025 title: how he admires Lando Norris for being a role model, why he thinks Max Verstappen is under less pressure than his rivals, and how Oscar Piastri’s intelligence impresses him.
Sebastian also remembers his time racing at Ferrari, and why he felt he was ‘on his way down’ in his final years with the team. Plus, he shares the advice he gave friend and rival Lewis Hamilton before he joined the Scuderia.


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Every driver who wants to win with Red Bull needs to impress Helmut Marko. The veteran Motorsport Advisor oversees the team’s young driver programme and helped launch the careers of Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen. A former F1 driver himself, he knows what it takes to race under the highest pressure.
Helmut tells Tom Clarkson about his life in racing: childhood adventures in Austria with future world champion Jochen Rindt, and the serious eye injury which ended his driving career just as he was about to join Ferrari. He tells the story of how he met Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, and how they started the F1 team which would go on to win races and championships with Vettel and Verstappen.
Plus, Marko explains how Verstappen and Team Principal Laurent Mekies have changed the team’s approach in 2025 and picks the young driver with potential to be a future champion.


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With three rounds left of the 2025 season, Oscar Piastri is still in contention to become Formula 1 World Champion for the first time.

So what’s it like being in the thick of an F1 title fight with so much at stake?

Speaking to Tom Clarkson before the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Oscar opens up about the pressure of a title battle and why fighting a teammate is different to racing against any other driver.

He also discusses whether his relationship with teammate Lando Norris has changed this year and how he feels McLaren have handled the challenge of treating them both equally.

It’s easy to forget that this is only Oscar’s third season as an F1 driver. With seven wins, seven podiums and five pole positions, he’s taken a huge leap forward. What exactly did he work on over the winter to make so much progress this year? And how are race engineer Tom Stallard, manager Mark Webber and new physio Artturi Simila all helping his development?

As well as reflecting on the highs, Oscar also talks about dealing with setbacks in Australia, at Silverstone and in Azerbaijan, which is good insight into how he’ll bounce back from a difficult weekend in Brazil.

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