F1 drivers...but they're characters from Ice Age

F1 Off the Track

F1 drivers...but they're characters from Ice Age

Well?? What if??

Chris Deeley

Friday 25 April 2025 20:00

Welcome to a new feature at GPFans that we're calling Rest Week Thought Exercises, which will run every non-race weekend until the end of the season, or we run out of thoughts, or I can't be bothered to do it. They won't all be about films, or Ice Age. This one is though.

Re-casting films is fun. Imagine if John Travolta had taken the part of Forrest Gump when it got offered to him (no, seriously). Imagine the version of Star Wars with Al Pacino as Han Solo. Film history would be...well, almost exactly the same, but do we ever get multiple Indiana Jones films if Harrison Ford wasn't a big *ahem* star from Star Wars? Then no Lego Indiana Jones games! Sad!

This week we're recasting Ice Age, the 2002 animated film that spawned four sequels (with a fifth scheduled for 2026), a spin-off film and a TV series, because playing God is fun and there's nobody around to stop me.

First things first: there's absolutely no narrative or character justification for casting Max Verstappen as Sid the Sloth. He is not that clownish, irritating nitwit, they have nothing in common. But...well, even Max knows he looks like that absolute nimrod, so hands tied. Personally I'd see him more as a Diego, but we play the cards we're dealt.

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Manny? I've solicited help from inside a team for this one, and they say Oscar Piastri. He's pretty serious and stoic but he's got a nice soft side, and I have no better ideas so we're running with it.

Diego's a bit of a wildcard, because it's hard to say 'yes, I believe this person represents the sort of person who would fully intend to revenge-kill a baby', so we're just going to take the very loose arc of 'person who was tiresome, even verging on villainous for a while, and is now universally loved. Also, charming'. Welcome, Lewis Hamilton.

We've got our travelling company protecting the helpless baby (Kimi Antonelli, obviously, come on now), but what about our villains? Who's replacing Goran Visnjic as Soto, the sabretooth pack leade--Toto Wolff, it's Toto Wolff. If only sabretooth wolves were a thing.

Hey, remember the ice slide scene in this film, where baby Kimi Antonelli goes for a cheeky little slip-n-slide down a massive, massive cave with the sickest ice race course ever, and the Big Three have to try and catch him? Let's dive into that.

For what it's worth, Sid Verstappen absolutely has the right idea here. He's right on the baby's tail, gets into DRS range and makes the catch while the others are still farting about and getting their legs under them. It's not his fault that running so close to the kid means he doesn't see a hole in the floor.

He recovers from that pretty well and uses Manny Piastri for a tow, again a savvy racing brain working at lightning speed in a high stress situation. Diego Hamilton finds himself actively trying to slow down, because he's just free-falling down a vertical hole. If that doesn't sum up everything post-Abu Dhabi 2021, what does?

The three of them end up side by side going down a long, long main straight, with Manny and Diego focusing on each other as they fight to get lower and more aerodynamically sound (yes Diego, we will be checking those skid blocks later) but it's Sid Verstappen, again, who has the natural pace and almost snags the baby before it goes veering wildly off track. You can veer vertically, right? That's language?

The victory (/child) falls into Manny's lap (/trunk) when a wall with Scrat the Squirrel (Lance Stroll, obviously) in it proves an obstacle for the other two, who smash into him and presumably bruise his acorn.

The film goes on, Diego Hamilton tells Soto Wolff (it works SO WELL) that he's on his side and bringing the baby (see: signing a new Mercedes deal) only to have a change of heart and turn his back on his pack leader (see: signing for Ferrari a few months later anyway).

Everyone ends up all happy and fluffy (except for Soto Wolff, who is dead of icicles), and Baby Kimi gets handed back over to his dad. Let's say...George Russell.

What happens after that? Well, we have time for a look at the sequel between Miami and Imola...*

(*I'm not watching the Ice Age sequel for this, the next one of these will not be Ice Age related, do not come to the website in two weeks hoping for another piece about Ice Age, I would rather swallow my own thumbs.)

Max Verstappen Oscar Piastri