Red Bull dominant, Ferrari same same, but look who is back!

Ok, ok, I know I always say I want my racing right at the front, drivers fighting for victories, but whilst Bahrain didn't have any of that, I rather enjoyed the race as a whole. Hell I even said in my last post that if Alonso was back at the sharp end again that I'd stick with F1 this year.

Age is only a number

If you're fast enough you're good enough. This is the general rule in F1. Fernando Alonso is 41 and the oldest driver on the grid. Irrelevant. He is also one of the best, and still one of the hungriest and most dedicated to his profession.

I couldn't believe it when he stuck his Aston Martin in 5th on Saturday in Bahrain. It confirmed what many people had suspected from testing and indeed from the Bahrain practice sessions (when in the latter Alonso was top 3 in the time sheets consistently) - that of the fact that Aston Martin had made serious improvements and gains from last season. Over one lap it looks like they have the third quickest car, more or less. 

On race pace in Bahrain, they had arguably the second quickest car. Whilst the Ferrari's were quicker on the first stint, Alonso bided his time and was just too strong in the second half of the race, the Aston seemed to be much kinder to its tyres compared to the Ferrari (sidenote, was Alonso on different tyres to Sainz? I don't recall). Either way, the race pace is very much there.

Ok LeClerc retired, which helped bump Alonso up the order a bit, but to finish first in F1, first you have to finish. Alonso didn't finish first, but you get my point.

But Alonso robbed Hamilton and Sainz then disappeared up the road later on, having diced with both Mercedes cars earlier on after falling behind them both at the start. I'd say Mercedes are definitely behind Aston and Ferrari.

It is just so exciting to see Fernando back where he belongs at the sharp end. Andrew Benson agrees :-).

Ferrari - same as usual?

The red cars seemed fairly swift early on, though not anywhere near the Red Bull of Max. Indeed, Perez swiftly dispatched both of them to ease into second. Then LeClerc broke down and the pace of Sainz faded towards the end of the race.

And now LeClerc is taking a ten place grid penalty in Saudi Arabia, the season has started off pretty miserably for a team that no doubt had title aspirations.

Red Bull and Max utterly dominant

Both George Russell and Toto Wolff said after the race that they could see Red Bull winning every race this season. I don't think they are too wide of the mark on that prediction. Max was in a league of his own, with Perez 20 odd seconds off in second.

Lance Stroll - One tough bastard!

12 days after breaking his wrists and his big toe, plus some other hefty bruises and the like, Lance Stroll wrangled his Aston Martin to 6th. Amazing. That is why I love F1 - the drivers are absolute warriors! 

Let's see what Saudi Arabia has in store for us this weekend. Will the Aston Martin still be strong and quick? Will Ferrari and Mercedes improve? What has happened to McLaren?

2022 - No regrets, 2023 - Let's go (presuming Red Bull have challengers this year)

2022 - No regrets on not posting

Well, it cannot have escaped those eagle-eyed readers amongst all five of you (I'm being generous with my reader numbers), that I didn't squeeze out a blog at all in 2022. I think that is the first full year since starting this blog with my esteemed colleague in 2010, that I have gone a full year and not dropped one out. 

I'm not going to do any roundups of 2022 or big analysis here now, what would be the point?

At varying stages of the season, and to varying levels, I lost interest in F1 frankly. There were some fun races and some great battles. But there were a fair few dull races, let downs, too, with Max winning what, 15 or 16 races out of however many, the driver and car package started to remind me of Schumacher and Ferrari in 2001-2004 and Lewis and Mercedes between 2017 and 2020 (once Vettel had fallen away mid-season in 2017 and 2018). 

The race winner was more often than not very predictable. I like my F1 with battles for first, not focused on midfield fights for 9th or 10th. Hey ho.

Ok,ok, it would had to have been a monumental 2022 to better the insane championship fight we had in 2021. Let's face it, 2021 had it all and then some (a real once in a generation fight that got nasty on track, like Senna vs Prost etc)! But once Red Bull pegged back Ferrari it felt like game over by mid-season in 2022 (and Ferrari started throwing things away with strategy errors and driver errors etc - question?)...

My head was more than turned by MotoGP in 2022. I'd been following championships past, on and off over the last 2 or 3 years, but my interest exploded in 2022. As my F1 interest faltered at times, my interest in MotoGP grew and grew. The title race was immense, most races had fights at the front and all the way through the field. What a title race and climax at the end, with Francesco Bagnaia looking out of it around half-way, around 90 odd points behind Fabio Quartararo. How Bagnaia turned it around is almost beyond comprehension.

Optimistic outlook for F1 2023

I am hopefully optimistic for F1 2023, and here is why.

Alonso at Aston Martin (I am a huge Alonso fan)

Fair play to Fernando Alonso for snapping up a position at Aston Martin. Alpine were beyond useless on all fronts for securing a driver alongside Ocon for 2023. Apparently they offered Alonso a 1+1 year deal, which if you read the writing on the wall, it sort of looked like they were keeping Piastri in the wings to take over from Alonso the minute they didn't think he was performing.

Alonso preempted them, by buggering off to Aston Martin on a multi-year deal (read 2 or 3 I think?), in the space created by Vettel retiring. 

You're 41, and your current team have left you feeling a little devalued, then a team with a huge development budget comes in and makes you feel immediately wanted with a big deal for multiple years and no doubt an even bigger salary. Bit of a no-brainer really. He is enjoying F1, driving very well indeed, and he wants to ensure he is here for a few more years yet. Aston Martin guaranteed him more years in F1.

Mercedes and Hamilton licking their wounds

Compared to their title-winning cars, Mercedes built a bit of a shitbox for 2022. Hamilton spent more of the early races with different parts on the car in practice sessions, thus negating any good setup time for qualifying and races. Russell drove consistently well all year pretty much. So, both Mercedes and Hamilton will be looking forward to building a race-winning car and thus something to beat Red Bull with again.

Ferrari have to do better, right?

They had the quickest car over one lap in 2022, but through a combination of cock ups and Red Bull improving, they managed to fritter away any title possibilities fairly early on in the season really. If they can build a fast car again and rid themselves of their strategy mess ups, then I am hoping that, along with Merc, we have a 3-team battle at the front.

Alpine fireworks

Interesting that as soon as Alonso said he was leaving, there were bullets being spat left, right and centre between him and Ocon. It seemed an otherwise ok relationship, aside from one or two very close tussles on track (Ocon blocking Alonso off the grid at Hungary, thus moving them both back around 5 places for one!).

Now we have Gasly alongside Ocon. These two famously fell out a few years ago. It is all nice and cordial at the moment. Of course it is. Two French drivers in a French team, they have to appear to be making an effort. I guarantee it will go to shit on track and the relationship will dissolve very quickly in 2023, which is fantastic for the neutrals! After all, looking back, it does seem to be Ocon a lot of the time who has on track prangs with teammates.

Stupid rules (will be broken!)

The silliest rule yet, that F1 drivers cannot speak about politics or religion without prior permission, is beyond stupid. In this day and age, some drivers like using F1 as a platform to raise awareness of things going on in the world. But F1 has to think about the money of course. What if our star driver offends this country with horrific human rights records that gives us buckets and buckets of money? Pft!

That is all I can think of for now. See you again soon in 2023! Next up, car launches!!!

Farce - my still prevaling feelings on the 2021 title climax

Farce (noun) - a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.

- an event or situation that is absurd or disorganised.

I wasn't sure where to begin, so I went with my still prevailing feelings on the race that was in Abu Dhabi.

I should also state early on, I am neither a big fan of Lewis or Max, but it is my solid belief that the actions of Race Control late in the race made this an absolute farce of an ending to a world title race.

I am not upset that either Max or Lewis won or lost. I am annoyed because our sport looked pretty stupid today.

You simply cannot change the rules on the fly just because it makes a better show. End of. If this were any other race in the year, other than the final one where the title is being decided, I highly suspect it would have ended under the safety car. Andrew Benson at the BBC has apparently spoken to many people who think the same.

There has been a lot of "just let them race" from Race Control lately, and indeed some of it has sparked debate amongst drivers as to the track limits and where and how an acceptable overtake can be made.

Letting them race today, for one lap at the end, after having told all the cars between Lewis and Max to unlap themselves (but ignoring the other cars further down the field that could also have unlapped themselves, but were not allowed), then saying the safety car is coming in on the same lap too, that is two blatant rule changes right there to make it a better show for one lap. I sort of see where Michael Masi was coming from, but was this fair? Absolutely not. 

If you start tearing up the rule book to suit different situations, how are teams and drivers to know what is coming next? An absolute joke frankly. 

Those rules being, in the F1 rulebook, either all cars unlap themselves under the Safety Car, or none. After that has happened, the Safety Car comes in the following lap, not on the same lap (I think?). 

This season has been full of stewards, race control, appeals, penalties, swearing on team radio, collisions, angry words from teams to race control....bitter words between team principals. So in one way I am not surprised it has ended as it has been all year.

But, do I agree with this ending? Absolutely not. Anyone new to F1 who had tuned into see this race will need someone to explain to them "yep they changed the rules to allow them to race on the last lap". In my humble opinion, Lewis was actually robbed clean. 

Damon Hill tweeted about how it all seems there's a bit too much of "guess what I'm going to do next" from Race Control here. 

Also another tweet from Damon about what Race Control said regarding all teams had already agreed to end races on a green flag racing situation where possible here. 

But surely, they would have assumed all rules would be followed to get that green flag racing situation, not half followed and half made up....

The timeline included Masi saying no cars would be allowed to unlap themselves. Horner, clearly thinking time was running out and they'd finish behind the Safety Car, got on the radio to complain about this to Michael Masi. Masi then changes his mind and allows all the backmarkers between Lewis and Max to get out of the way of Max and go and unlap themselves. Brutal. With Max on new soft tyres and Lewis on old Hard tyres, Lewis was a sitting duck.

To me, the race result was as artificial as a DRS pass frankly. 

Get rid of DRS please, on a related note. Make the cars so they run better in dirty air, then bloody scrap DRS for the love of F1 please!!!

I also do not like either of the main team principals moaning over the radio trying to influence things happening in the race. Horner did it, so did Wolff (please don't make this a full safety car Michael), during the virtual safety car period.

I will write more in the coming days, more in-depth about Lewis and Max and the race. But this is my immediate reaction. We simply cannot have Race Control changing/ adapting rules on the fly, as otherwise why have a rulebook in the first place? Ok it's a tough job no doubt, but today he got it very wrong indeed.

Anyone for bowling?

 

I thought of that blog title, perhaps somewhat smugly, as soon as the first corner carnage unfolded. Turns out, great minds think alike - check out poor Charles LeClerc on Twitter...

I cannot recall such an action packed, exciting race in recent memory. Wow. 

 

First corner carnage changes the race

They really did topple like pins from a bowling game, cannoning off into each other. 

Bottas made a poor start, and was overtaken by Norris and Perez. To be fair, it was the first wet running all weekend, so some errors were bound to happen somewhere. Bottas misjudged the braking and nerfed into Norris, who in turn was a passenger and spun into Verstappen. Bottas continued sliding and took out Perez. They all went off at the outside of the hairpin corner. Then a charging Stroll mounted the inside grass and clattered into LeClerc, who then in turn hit Ricciardo a little further around the corner. Utter carnage. Pieces of F1 car strewn everywhere and anyone who stayed to the inside probably did better than those going around the outside of the carnage. Ocon and Vettel nipped through from eighth and tenth to go second and third behind Hamilton! Sainz came from 15th to...4th was it? Amazing. And also shows just how many cars were retired or knocked to the back. Alonso sort of got stuck a bit on the exit, having had to slow right down as he went more to the outside to try and avoid the spinning cars. The race was stopped due to just how much wreckage there was on track.

 

Weirdest restart in F1 history?

Coming round to the grid for the restart, everyone but Hamilton elected to change from wets to slicks and to start from the pitlane. This left Hamilton to take the grid alone. What the actual smeg was that? You'd have to rub your eyes a few times to believe it. It turned out later that Mercedes thought it was going to rain again. The Channel 4 pundits thought it might have been to do with well, if he pits with everyone else, there are no guarantees he comes out first. Witness George Russell making massive pitstop gains to emerge second I think?

Ocon vs Vettel

For most of the race, Vettel was closely tracking Ocon, never more than 1.5 seconds adrift. He made a couple of notable moves, the biggest was when Ocon was lapping a McLaren down the start finish straight. All in all, Ocon took full advantage and drove an absolutely flawless race in the lead with a four time champion breathing down his neck for 68 laps. Amazing. Thoroughly well deserved win!

You can look at a full race analysis here, courtesy of BBC and Andrew Benson. I'm gonna delve into the juiciest bits.

Hamilton vs Verstappen

The last 2 races have been a disaster for Verstappen, of fairly epic proportions. He was 32 points ahead before Silverstone. He is now 8 behind. That's a 40 point swing to Hamilton. Ok, for Hungary there was absolutely no blame on Verstappen as he was clattered into by Norris, a mere passenger himself. His car was severely damaged and he laboured near the back of the race for the majority of laps, but he did scrape a point near the end. How valuable could that be at the end of the year?

 

Hamilton vs Alonso

Hamilton had so much speed during the race and would unquestionably have caught Ocon for the win (after being slap bang last after the first lap of the restart, having pitted for slicks) if it hadn't been for the dogged brilliance of Alonso in a battle for 4th. He held Hamilton off for ten laps, which prevented Hamilton catching Ocon - you could see he was under a second from Vettel at the end!

It was just two supreme racers at their total best. Alonso celebrated his 40th birthday in style with a defiant, classy drive to 4th (well, 5th, but Vettel was later DQ'd due to fuel irregularities).

Check out the battle here.

Other epic stuff...

The Williams boys drove brilliantly to both get Williams' first points of the year. Latiffi was in third at one point, Russell in second at one point too (I think? I lost track to be honest with so much going on!).

Sainz again drove a pretty stellar race, finishing 4th with Alonso breathing down his neck. Though obviously this was later third due to Vettel's DQ.

I think we all need a little break just to calm the hell down after this one. Just, wow. Nothing I can really say will describe just how much fun, excitement and proper wheel to wheel racing this one had.

The title race is evenly poised as we go to Spa. 

And breathe.

If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver

 19.7.21

A quote from perhaps the greatest of them all, the idol of Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna. Was Lewis channelling that mantra as he arrived at Copse on lap 1?

Ok, as my former blogging colleague, and co-founder of this very blog, pointed out, that quote was from 30 years ago, of a different time in F1, where Senna perhaps got away with things here and there. These days F1 is very risk averse in comparison, hence penalties are dished out for all sorts.

I’ve been texting my F1 mates a lot about this and overall, opinion seems fairly divided. Channel 4 pundits DC and Mark Webber said Lewis shouldn’t have left his wheel in there and that he got off fairly lightly on the penalty. Though I have since seen that LeClerc and Alonso both labelled it a racing incident. Norris seemed less inclined to give his opinion. Fans of both drivers will no doubt back each of their guys.

I have no doubt Horner and Wolff, if their positions were swapped, would be saying the exact things the other is saying right now (and directly after the race).

And let us be honest, do we really think Max would have done any different if he were in Lewis’ position?

 

Racing incident 

I am calling the Lewis vs Max crash at Silverstone a racing incident. Both guys were super aggressive and neither wanted to back off. When that happens, inevitably there is a crash. Perhaps there was 5% more blame on Lewis, because he wasn’t on the usual line for Copse, and Max was.

Though Max knew Lewis was there and was probably expecting him to back off. But unlike the other couple of near moments they have had in races this year, where Lewis had to back off to avoid an accident against the always aggressive Max, this time he didn’t.

Maybe that did come from a moment of desperation. Perhaps he had to overtake Max on lap 1 and make it stick, otherwise Max would have pulled away and disappeared into the distance. 33 points in the title race is a fair way off.

But, Lewis was alongside far enough to be entitled to think it was his corner. Contradicting myself here, but on the flipside he was on a very tight angle and understeering. See, even as I write this I can’t decide entirely where blame should lie.

Andrew Benson, the F1 analyst at BBC, makes some good points in his article. That Lewis has not really had any big title pressure in the last couple of years. 2017 and 18 early on there was a nibble from Vettel, which faded over the course of the seasons. You need to go back to 2016 for when the pressure was last turned up to 10. And Lewis did make a couple of mistakes back then, the big one in Barcelona of course (when Rosberg was ahead and perfectly entitled to slam the door shut on Lewis, causing Lewis to brake and spin onto the grass and clatter into Nico). Nico did not back off at all in 2016 in these sorts of situations, where he perhaps had done previously.

 

24.7.21

Ok, I needed to step away for a few days to clear my head on this one. Red Bull have since announced that the crash could cost them up to £1.3m! Ouch!

It is clear that emotions were very high in the aftermath, from all sides. Christian Horner has mellowed a little since then perhaps. I don’t really agree with Max tweeting from hospital saying he found Lewis celebrating to be disrespectful. They crashed, Lewis was told Max was out of the car and essentially ok. I think, if anything, the fact Lewis still won with that penalty just shows how far ahead Mercedes and Red Bull are of the rest.

 

Drivers of the weekend?

As good as Hamilton’s win was, I can’t give him driver of the weekend when he has been involved in punting his rival into the kitty litter.

You’d have to go some way to beat LeClerc on this for me. That Ferrari had no right being in first place for most of the grand prix. But he showed yet again just what a supreme talent he truly is. And let us not forget that Hamilton was helped out by Ferrari car gremlins as he caught and passed LeClerc.

 

Let us also consider the quite mighty weekend from none other than Fernando Alonso. His sprint race start was utterly electric, going from 11^th to 5^th! Ok he had soft tyres, but his starts have always been mighty, and he found a way around the outside of a couple of cars at least. Then he spent the second half of the sprint race in 7^th fending off a queue of faster cars behind him. As like the Ferrari of LeClerc in the main race, that Alpine had no real business being that high up the order. He spent the grand prix in 7^th, fending off cars behind him too. A true fighting drive.

 

Driver of the year so far

Is unquestionably Lando Norris. Next!

 

Sprint race yey or ney?

I think from a spectator point of view, having qualifying on Friday in place of practice sessions worked well. Let’s face it, most practice sessions are boring to watch.

Then having a mini race on Saturday was diverting enough for a few laps, then it all settled and got very boring very quickly. As most people have remarked, it was saved by Alonso seemingly being in a rocket ship.

I am undecided really. I think the sprint race needs some tweaking if it is to be a permanent fixture, but I hope it really just fades away as for an OCD chap like myself it messes with records a bit. They did a usual qualifying session on Friday and it wasn’t pole position, it was “speed king”. Huh?

 

The championship year ahead

The crash was perhaps inevitable, the way the two protagonists race. And there will be a couple more before the end of the year. The gloves are well and truly off now and we’ll all be watching to see how it pans out in Hungary. For the neutral, this is utterly fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

Round 1: Bahrain race review

Phew. F1 is back with a bang. And luckily for us fans, it seems we have a genuine two team fight for the title.

I was wrong. All those years of Mercedes arriving into the first round and unleashing their full qualifying potential have left me somewhat cynical it seems. Max was 4 tenths ahead of Lewis for pole and provided the 7 team world champion with a stern test through the race, albeit racing apart for most of it. It was a game of cat and mouse, of strategy, that ultimately led to a showdown on track for the last handful of laps. And we were not left disappointed as the 2 drivers went at it hammer and tongs to win the season opener. Max hunting down Lewis when Lewis was on tyres that were 11 laps older, so he had to defend with all his racing acumen, and then some! Max ultimately overtook Lewis off the track at turn 4 and had to hand back the lead immediately, through fear of race control punishment (the turn 4 off track rules seemed confusing during the race and at the end to be honest!). 

It was a grandstand finish from two drivers at the very top. Let us hope Red Bull are competitive at all tracks this year, and don't drop away on other tracks like they did at times last year. Game on!

This. This is what I wanted all along. Racing, fighting for the win!

Elsewhere there was plenty to see. Norris made a blinding start and was soon in 4th. Perez's Red Bull turned itself off on the parade lap and he had to start from the pitlane - he finished an excellent 5th!

Fernando Alonso didn't drive like someone who has been away from F1 for 2 years. He made an excellent start, taking Sainz immediately and tracking the McLarens until falling away a bit. He also had a doozy of a battle a bit later with Vettel and Sainz. A shame he had to retire really, as no doubt he would have got some good points for Alpine.

Both McLaren's looked pretty nippy early on and Ricciardo finished a solid 7th in a car he is no doubt still getting used to. Ferrari looked solid enough too, finishing 6th and 8th. A good start compared to the utterly disaster strewn year of 2020! Read the full race report from BBC here now.

Of course, plenty of people will look at the benefits of the new aero regulations for some teams versus others. Ehm. Still. They are all in the same boat and have to adapt to the rules as best they can. But this is an interesting little graphic about how much time each team has lost in Bahrain 2021 qualifying versus the same race last year.  

There was proper racing throughout the field, throughout the race. Brilliant.

Also, I can't be the only one who mistaken the Aston Martin's for the Mercedes on around 3 different occasions?! Under the lights the paint jobs look rather similar! 

Round 2 - let's go! :-)

Round 1: Bahrain qualifying report and views

It was great watching the C4 F1 gang again, like welcoming back old friends you haven't seen for a few months :-). DC is celebrating his 50th birthday (loving Mark commentating on DC getting a face full of cake), and Mark Webber's folks are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Fantastic. And they had a beautiful piece from DC about Murray Walker.

Qualifying for round 1 threw up some interesting results. LeClerc in 4th, Gasly in 5th, Vettel out in Q1, Perez 11th. And Russell once again getting (what is quite likely) the slowest car into Q2. Fantastic. You can read the full report here from the BBC. Sainz was half a second behind LeClerc, which might sting a bit, but then again the whole car would have been built last year around LeClerc so let's give Carlos some time to get fully up to speed.

The McLaren's were both in the top 10, along with the returning Fernando Alonso in a fairly strong 9th.

But let us talk about Max in the 33 Red Bull (my sometime blogging colleague will be living in a very happy household given the Max superfan status of his wife). Wow, what a lap, nearly 4 tenths up on Lewis! I mean, I really don't want to get carried away. But, it looks like Red Bull are genuinely quicker than Mercedes, at least at the first track here. I wasn't really listening to all the talk before qualifying of Red Bull being quicker, as we've seen in previous years Mercedes arrive at qualifying and blow everyone away. I thought that would likely happen here. But, we may indeed have a genuine fight at the front. Proper racing at the very front! Let's see. I am excited.

Now to the real important stuff. How are my fantasy F1 teams looking based on qualifying? Hehe.

Ok, my team 1 drivers are Alonso, Gasly and Kimi. Not looking too bad.

Perez, Russell and Ocon in team 2. Eh.

Vettel, Stroll and Schumacher in the last team. Go Stroll!

I'll be back early in the week for a full post-race analysis :-).