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.

Round 2: Bahrain review..and Round 3: China preview

Justin:

What a great race eh?! Racing at the front and everything in between, 110%, for sure. Unquestionably.

But...MORE RACING AT/ NEAR THE FRONT. YEY! I appreciate that "yay" is a tad unprofessional, but I've been doing this blogging 10 years as a hobby/ passion...not as a pro. Yet ;-).

Highlights are here, courtesy of the amazing Channel 4 team again. 18 minutes in, Christian Horner showing Steve Jones some love haha.

Vettel

I do feel for Vettel. The guy I despised once, as the sworn enemy to Fernando back when it was RB vs Ferrari, and now what do you know I have actually developed a caring side for. Sort of.

LeClerc dominated Vettel all weekend, beating him to pole by 0.3 seconds. That is a lifetime for teammates in F1. Then, aside from the first few laps, he all but disappeared up the road and left Vettel for dust until his engine had problems.

Vettel spun under pressure and an overtake around the outside from Hamilton. That's a continuation of the errors he started making, on and off, at the halfway stage last year.

Now, every driver goes through bad spells. Look at Lewis and pretty much all of 2011! I had hoped Vettel would come back strong this year and wipe the floor with everyone. Two races in and it isn't the case just yet. He has LeClerc to deal with as well as two fast Merc drivers and a resurgent Verstappen in the Red Bull.

He, Vettel, had a cracking start to the race, then went backwards.

Bottas

Looked mega fighty and quick at the start, then faded but still claimed 2nd. He didn't look too fighty in the middle of the race, but thanks to Ferrari misfortune Mercedes grabbed a 1-2 and Bottas got some great championship points. My jury is still out on whether Bottas is title material this year.

He made a mega costly error at the start of lap 2, locking up and allowing LeClerc then Hamilton to pass. But, he is certainly making it more fun for the moment as part of a possible all Merc and all Ferrari fight.

Ferrari 

Found the pre-season fastest of all pace they promised but missed in Australia. But, they didn't win the race. Hmmm...is 2019 actually 2018 all over again?!

They already have team dynamic issues. LeClerc was asked to hold station behind Vettel. Erm nope! He stated he was faster and just went for the overtake. Which actually led to half a lap of fun fighting at the front. Sod Vettel. Sod Ferrari. That's what champions and championships are made of...defying team orders. Multi 21 Seb??

Eh?

Really, what kind of fucking name is "Racing Point"?? It sounds like a pointing dog that is pointing at, well, something.

Which driver?

I've always followed drivers over teams. Mansell, Hill, Villeneuve, Alonso....and now that Fernando has retired..?? I'm somewhat adrift. I thought my racing heart would gravitate towards Danny Ric, but I have to be honest that it hasn't so far. I..don't really have a favourite driver right now and I'm somewhat adrift in whom to cheer for.

LeClerc to challenge for the title?

I'm unsure if I am asking a question or stating a fact. Charles showed a lot of maturity in losing the race win via engine issues. He had immediate perspective and calm. Let's face it, he was dominant all weekend and for the majority of the race.

If Bottas cuts the errors and Vettel gets his act together...we could have a 4 car fight for the title between the Mercedes and Ferrari teams. Should be more fun for the neutral over the wipeout of the last half of 2018 where Hamilton walked it.

1000 up

China this coming weekend brings us the 1,000th F1 championship Grand Prix. I would say I fancy a Ferrari win, but then again they were heavily fancied in Australia and Bahrain...

Renault, in particular Danny Ric, need to do better. As does Sainz at McLaren.

I'd say the standout superstar so far this year is clearly Lando Norris. That guy is doing amazing things in the midfield McLaren, making Sainz look a tad slow right now for sure.

Poor Williams, around a second down on the next team on the grid. They need to turn things around quickly. Unfortunately you can make a quick car reliable but it's a lot more tricky to make a slow car fast. Or something.

F1 2018 - Abu Dhabi - A legend says goodbye

Justin:

It's been a while...

My last blog was in June, after the Canadian GP. A lot has happened in F1!

It was indeed the last F1 race I'd see Fernando Alonso at, as he soon after announced his retirement from F1.

Fitting tribute

There were a fair few nice, classy touches from F1 and McLaren over the Abu Dhabi race weekend for the fighting Spaniard.

F1 repainted the driver briefing room with moments from his career - see here.

There was a paddock barbecue after the race.

There was this reflective video piece from McLaren and the man himself here.

McLaren changed their car livery in honour of the helmet colours of Alonso.

And almost finally, the F1 paddock gave their tributes here.

Here's Fernando himself with a final video goodbye and thanks.

But the thing I loved the most? It was like a guard of honour. After the chequered flag, Fernando cruised up to Seb and Lewis doing donuts. And from there the 3 champions drove around the track together. It was as if Fernando's two greatest rivals were giving him a guard of honour and respect to see him on his way. It was a beautiful moment of respect. I remember how tough the Fernando vs Seb fight got in 2012. And from 2010 to 2013 all three of them were contenders and huge rivals. Of course, 2007 is also woven into the tapestry of Lewis vs Fernando. That's where it all began.

Then after driving around to the start/ finish straight, the three legends with 11 titles between them let rip with a series of donuts. 

I've been a massive Alonso fan since the start. He fights. All the time. He drives cars to the absolute limit. He is relentless. He is an F1 legend and an F1 all time great.

I've been lucky enough to attend his home race in 2009 and have seen him race additionally in Belgium in 2012 (where he got punted on the first corner so I have no race photo), Hungary 2015, Singapore 2016 and Montreal this year. I also visited the Fernando Alonso museum in 2017. Here's a picture from each of those below:

Elsewhere

It was a fairly interesting race. We had a scary role for The Hulk. Happily he was fine. Lewis won from Seb whilst Max pipped Daniel to the last podium slot. There was a fair bit of fun racing throughout, featuring some balls out overtakes for sure.

The end is the beginning

Kimi had his last race for Ferrari and is off to Sauber for 2019. Charles Leclerc had is last race for Sauber and is off to Ferrari for 2019.

Daniel Ricciardo is off to Renault next year where Ocon is off to be a Mercedes reserve driver.

Sainz is off to McLaren, and Vandorne is off to Formula E.

Plenty to look forward to next year for sure. How will Seb cope with the young charger next to him? How will Daniel cope being midfield for a year or two? Will Red Bull Honda be the package to see Max challenge Lewis and Seb at the very front?

Thank you Channel 4

I only dabbled once with Sky Sports live coverage for one of the GP's where the highlights were going to be shown at around 11pm or so. And I found their show to be pretty dull actually.

The Channel 4 team are ace! Enthusiasm, action, fun, banter, serious, explaining stuff for the casual viewer they want to entice. Channel 4 have a tricky role in that they have to appeal to die hard F1 fans as well as more casual viewers. It's a fine balance. A balance they achieved and yeah.

Just, thank you to Steve Jones, Karun Chandhok, DC, Mark Webber, Susie Wolf, EJ, Lee McKenzie, Ben Edwards.

You've made the last 3 years so much fun for us peeps who don't want Sky! I noticed the coverage today came up with the graphic "Australian GP highlights will be on C4 on XXX March 2019".

Hope I see some of the gang in 2019 :-).

Why I love Formula One

Justin:

Seems like an indulgent title I know. But, I have rediscovered my love of writing about F1 here, so I thought I'd roll with it and just see where this blog takes me.


I admit I have struggled on occasion to enjoy F1 lately. Minimal fighting at the front and domination by one team. I miss Rosberg at Mercedes too if I am honest. Their team dynamic has changed and seems much more harmonious these days. Good for the team, but I miss the drama and fighting between Nico and Lewis - on the track and off it.

Where did it all start?

Well, I got into F1 because my Dad watched it when I was a nipper, aged 5 or 6. Evidence of my love for the sport was clear early on though. I remember stumbling across an old scrapbook I kept from around 1985 or so. It had press cuttings of everything to do with the sport, plus some amusing crayola drawings that I can only assume were meant to be F1 cars and drivers.


He took me to my first Grand Prix - The 1985 Shell Oils Grand Prix of Europe at Brands Hatch. The first win of Red 5! I have memories of this, mostly via looking at old photographs, but still it is there.

Mansell was my hero, the first driver I was thoroughly entranced by. He fought, scrapped and bullied the car around the tracks of the world. He was a complete fighter, was bloody quick and was intimidated by absolutely nobody. No bullshit. Witness him never yielding to Senna as they thrashed it down the straight of the first Spanish GP at Montmello in 1991 - a truly iconic image.

I remember eagerly getting up at stupid O'clock to watch all the Australian and Japanese races, a lot of them title showdowns. I remember being absolutely gutted when Mansells' tyre burst in 1986. The title showdowns with Prost and Senna, where I saw them crash on the first lap - immense anti-climax, so I went back to bed.

The Chain and Murray Walker are as much a part of the soundtrack to my life as any other music or voice.

I admit, I never fully, truly appreciated Ayrton Senna until well after he died. He was always the arch nemesis of Mansell, so I always felt I just couldn't like the guy at all.

I idolise the guy these days and have pretty much every book about him. In fact, I have an F1 bookcase, full of around 35 F1 books and F1 Racing Magazines dating back to 2001.

The drama...it's all this and more

It's the characters, it's the anticipation at the start of the race - I don't think I've been silent at any race starts, ever. I am always on the edge of my seat, looking out for a quick starting Alonso (for example) whilst screaming at the TV and leaping around.

It's the speed, it's the brutality, it's the gladiators and the machines, it's the risk, it's the art - the way a car impossibly sticks to the race track as it's flung around a corner at 150mph. I once said in this blog that the track is the canvas, the car is the brush and the driver is the artist.

It's wheel to wheel at 200mph...I just bloody love this sport.

I remember getting up in 1994 to watch the title showdown in Adelaide and being absolutely destroyed when Hill pulled into the pits. The wistful look in his eyes as he stared at the broken front wishbone. His titles hopes done and dusted.

I watched again in the early hours for Japan 1996 to hear Murray speak those immortal lines "and I've got to stop, because I've got a lump in my throat" - as Damon became World Champion.

It's watching the 2010 title decider with friends and being absolutely distraught when I saw things slipping away from Alonso, stuck behind Petrov for lap after lap as Vettel swiped the title from under his nose.

It's the utter drama of the 2007 season as Ron couldn't hold McLaren together as everything imploded.

It's Bahrain 2014 - the insane race between Rosberg and Hamilton. Teammates going for it 100%, neither wanting to yield an inch of tarmac, side by side, running out of road.

It's Gilles Villeneuve. I didn't grow up in his era, but I've seen the races. The ultimate fighter never gave up. Ever. The car control was insane. A true F1 hero.

It's the rich history of the sport, the despair, the drama, the heroic moments, the racing wheel to wheel, tinged with tragic moments.

In the flesh

From 1985, my next live encounter was Silverstone qualifying in 1991 - Senna, Prost and Mansell were all there.

2001 - Walked around Albert Park on my visit to Australia.

Then, skip forward to Barcelona 2009. Alonso country! The eager Spanish track announcer encouraging the crowd to join in every time he announced Alonso on the circuit speaker system - "Fernando....ALLLLOOONNNNSSSSSOOOOOO!!!!!". What a fantastic weekend as we witnessed Button crush all before him in his dominant Brawn. We also saw Massa conk out on the last lap and Alonso breeze by him for a tidy 5th in a pretty below average Renault. The crowd went absolutely bonkers.

Next, the boys trip to Belgium in 2012. From sheltering in a freezing cold bus shelter in the cold rain through to discovering Belgian beer, this was a trip to remember. Watching the cars go around Pouhon at 150mph, impossibly sticking to the tarmac, was incredible to see. I spent the first half of the race in a foul mood, as I'd traveled all that way to see Alonso continue on his path to the title only to see him punted out in dramatic fashion at turn one.

Hungary 2015 was hot! Our grandstand gave us a perfect view of Hamilton binning it into the kitty litter in the first lap. Alonso was 5th. All good!

Singapore 2016 was a different experience entirely! I was in the Waterfront grandstand, so had a fantastic view of the cars as they accelerated away and out of the corner, squirming to within an inch of the barrier. Amazing. I could also hear the support cars from my hotel room - what a way to whet the appetite! It was a great race too, with Rosberg being followed closely by Daniel, Kimi and Lewis.

2017 - No racing, but just the matter of visit to the Alonso Collection in Oviedo. I blogged about this last year. It's not every day you get to see all the cars of the greatest racer of a generation.

2018 - Off to Montreal for the Canadian GP. I've walked around the track before in..2002 I think. Grandstand 12 - I'm looking forward to what is usually a very entertaining race.

So, as every relationship has ups and downs, I've had mine with F1 - I still absolutely love it though.

Liberty have much to think about for the future though - I've read in places that people see Formula E as the future and at some point down the road F1 has decisions to make about how it progresses and what it becomes.

To Bahrain!

Australia qualifying report

Justin:

Well, ultimately, there were no great surprises. Lewis out ahead flanked by a Ferrari. That was an astonishing lap by Lewis and a huge gap to Kimi.

It caused a bit of a fruity press conference afterwards - Gotta love these two exchanging words.

Bottas has his work cut out after hitting the wall quite heavily. Still, with the speed on the Mercedes you'd expect him to rise through to the top 5 with relative ease.

The Renault team look strong, as do Haas (they have apparently remained within the rules whilst actually building very little of their car compared to other teams) - the latter are surely the most improved/ big surprise of 2018 so far?!

Fernando Alonso said during the build up that this would be the worst weekend for McLaren. He'd better hope so. I'd imagine they didn't have qualifying 11th and 12th in mind before Q3. That said, Alonso seemed ok with it.

There is a big gap between the top 3 teams and the best of the rest. There was one second from Daniel Ricciardo back to Kevin Magnussen. Not sure if I'm more concerned by that gap or the one between Lewis and the rest.

That said, the flip side is the top 3 were all mega close after Q2...but Lewis was holding back until obliterating everyone in Q3.

Unless Ferrari and Red Bull pull something very special out of the bag tomorrow (today now if anyone down under reads this), I don't think anyone other than Lewis will win this race.

It's great that F1 is back, but I hope we have fighting at the front tomorrow and don't just have to rely on midfield for close up racing.

We shall see.

F1 2018...go, go, go!!!!

Justin:

So, welcome back readers. I'm welcoming myself back here too. I last blogged in August 2017, after visiting Oviedo and the Fernando Alonso Collection.

It's been a while, for sure.

Before I go into what is happening in F1 - I just need to bask in the glory of the fact I have a ticket to see the Canadian Grand Prix this year. I cannot wait. Grandstand 12, 3 day ticket with mates, flat booked and flight booked. Bring it on.

That's four F1 themed holidays in the last four years - three of those were/are Grand Prix: Hungary 2015, Singapore 2016, Canada 2018. Boom.

I also need to purchase the new book by Darren Heath - I have all the others and need a bit of F1 photography before the first race. If I'm brave I may hashtag him when sharing this blog on Twitter in a shameless attempt to get more reads :-). Well, here is a link to his website anyway.

The rundown 
In truth, I survived the 3 or so months over winter with no F1 ( as opposed to every other year where I always needed a good F1 book). The title race became dull over the second half of 2017.

I'm using the BBC gossip column to update myself on rounding up the news here.

Some bits and pieces...

1. Looks like business as usual at the front end with Mercedes leading the way, followed by Ferrari and Red Bull.

2. After those teams, I think it's going to be closer than ever. Haas and Renault look like they have improved on 2017, whilst McLaren have made the biggest time difference gain in testing (fastest lap to fastest lap).

3. But really, we don't know until Australia. I'd imagine it will be a Mercedes clean sweep as usual. Sad and cynical as it makes me sound.

Here is Andrew Benson breaking it down.

Contracts
No disrespect to Bottas, but surely Ricciardo is on his way to Mercedes for 2019. Or Ferrari.

Actually, I'm hoping Bottas runs Hamilton much closer in 2018.



I think I called it incorrectly in my last blog. I thought Max was fed up at Red Bull, but he has signed a long term deal now. So, Ricciardo is looking at options and playing it cool for a bit.

Alonso
This guy is running in the WEC this year too. Fair play! I'm hoping McLaren have built a car worthy of his speed this year. Time to buy some new Alonso/ McLaren/ Renault merchandise.

Liberty
Not sure why they are faffing about hiring a Hollywood music person to write a theme song for F1.


There are surely bigger things to concentrate on first.

The state of TV in the UK after 2018 maybe?! More of this soon.

Maybe give the cash they are spending on the theme song back to the smaller teams. Or, give it to circuits that need to upgrade their facilities to be able to stay on the F1 calendar.

There's so many things they could do before faffing with a theme song for crying out loud.

A theme song? It's as if Bernie "let's have medals and sprinklers" Ecclestone never left.


TV coverage in UK
We have to take Liberty at their word. I imagine they explored the Sky contract for 2019 and it is watertight. That doesn't help viewing figures though.

Channel 4 gets more viewers for free practice sessions than Sky does for races.

It's all about money unfortunately. Though, I'd imagine Channel 4 could afford to pay large sums for a new live contract if they were given a chance.

Their coverage is awesome. They need to appeal to a wider audience as a given. Thus, their show is fun and accessible. But they also have the tech stuff too.

I watched Sky coverage twice. I've been watching F1 for 33 years now and I prefer Channel 4 coverage, even as a seasoned F1 viewer and fan. My I do sound pompous.

Anyway, who knows what coverage in the UK will be like after 2018. Let's enjoy it for now.

Roll on Australia, roll on F1 and roll on race day!

Belgium, Oviedo and whatever else I need to catch up on...

Justin:
Ok, so, it's been about three months since my first and only blog of this season. I've been about as rubbish as a Honda engine ;-).


For seven years, from 2010 to the end of 2016, I was writing pretty much after each and every race. I've gone into occasional blogger mode for the time being - so be it.

Fernando Alonso Museum
I was like a pig in shit during a recent trip to Spain, as I went with the number one purpose of visiting the Alonso museum. I certainly was not disappointed. I'll just let some of the pictures do the talking here...

Lorenzo Bandini trophy

2003 Renault - First race win!

World title and world title winning Renault

2012 Ferrari

Belgium
You can find all the race details and post-race interviews here, on the Channel 4 F1 website.

The big talking point for me has to be those Force India boys
Check out this tweet from Esteban Ocon - surely this won't go down very smoothly with Perez or the team!! Wouldn't be surprised if this gets deleted at some point. They were both blaming each other after the race, as F1 drivers usually do. That said, the stewards investigated but took no further action on the second incident at Eau Rouge. Force India have stated the drivers are not free to race moving forward. Fair play there. They have to learn not to nerf each other at every given opportunity, or it's becoming pretty much every race now! I watched the race with the Hamilton Court F1 Club (unofficial name = just me and two petrolhead neighbours :-)), and even we couldn't really reach agreement as to whose fault it all was. Ocon was being optimistic, but Perez would have known he was there surely. Just found this from Perez. Fair play - displaying a much cooler head. Well, I guess he is the experienced old hand in this pairing.

Racing right at the front
Am I too demanding on what I need from F1? I want wheel to wheel racing at the front. Blood, sweat and tears for the win. Vettel was never really more than a couple of seconds off Hamilton throughout, so no doubt they were both on it for all 44 laps. But aside from two crucial moments where they were side by side, they were never really together either. Still, Lewis caned it in qualifying and never looked back really. The championship fight continues to Monza for sure. Is this the weekend where Bottas dropped out of the potential title fight? He definitely had an off weekend. Then again, I'm sure we'll see Lewis have one of those sooner or later. Vettel has been the more consistent performer thus far, and whilst I think it will be very close, I think Vettel may just pip Lewis to the title. It's going to be great watching two legends go at it.

Anything else?
A good weekend for Palmer - Where did that pace come from? He would have been 7th on the grid had his car not failed yet again.

Danny Ric had a good race, steaming past Kimi and Bottas late on in an insane overtake. His press conference was bang on hilarious as is becoming the norm - check it out.

Max had a mare when his car broke down on lap 8. Oh dear. It has to be something to do with how he drives the car no? Anyway, he is sort of stuck at Red Bull for at least another year - until possible seats at Mercedes and Ferrari come up in 2019.

Alonso had a great race to a point, before his Honda engine failed yet again. He has gone on record as saying that McLaren only need to change one thing for him to stay next year. Just what could that be??!!

Nico Rosberg
Seems to be enjoying his retirement :-) - Check out his vlog here.

Robert Kubica
I would love, love, love to see this guy back next year for sure. Let's see how his next test goes.

The driver market has settled at the top 3 teams for next year. It's the midfield where rumours abound! Alonso, Kubica and the Renault test driver are all rumoured to be in the running for 2018 at Renault. Three into one will not go. Renault are also apparently thinking of Sainz. How many cars will they run next year?

Anyway, I'll be more regular from now on so blogs won't have three months worth of stuff to talk about in future!

Round 21: Abu Dhabi

Justin:

Well, there is so much to cover. Perhaps the thing to kick off with is to say, that whilst I was attempting to blog after every race this year, I noticed the last race I did so for was Singapore.

This is kind of appropriate. Nico Rosberg obliterated Hamilton in Singapore, probably giving his best performance of 2016. Nico himself said after that it was his best ever qualifying.

And so, from Singapore to Abu Dhabi - Nico Rosberg is our 2016 Formula 1 World Champion.

It was an exciting race, thanks in most part to Hamilton going only as quickly (or slowly) as he needed to, to back Rosberg into the chasing pack.

I don't understand the amount of backlash in the media regarding the tactics employed by Hamilton really. Rosberg himself has said he understood why he raced like that.

It truly was the drive of a champion by Nico Rosberg. The dive on Verstappen was a balls out overtake of the finest margins. Absorbing all the pressure as Hamilton drove slowly ahead whilst Vettel and Verstappen filled his mirrors. Brilliant under pressure. He held firm.

A worthy World Champion, for sure ;-).

Time to go
And then, a shock for us all. Nico announced his retirement a couple of days after the race.

After it had sunk in with me, I thought, you know what...fair play mate. He is happy with his choice. He has achieved all he wanted to and 2016 was the most emotional and stressful for him. He was under a lot of pressure, especially from Japan onwards. The relief was etched all over his face after he won.

I watched the FIA Prize Giving online and it was awesome, for sure.

Speculation
And now, silly season commences again. Most seats for 2017 had been filled, but Rosberg leaving could potentially start another merry-go-round.

There are a lot of rumours swirling around about this, and a lot of funny internet memes about the race to the Mercedes seat.

Will Vettel want to tear up his Ferrari contract? I don't think they will be winning next year. I expect Red Bull to be the ones who go up against Mercedes. Will Alonso even be allowed to leave McLaren? Will Mercedes go for a number 2? If they do, it will be a boring 2017 watching Hamilton race up front with no fast teammate to push him.

All will be revealed. Into a winter of over 3 months with no F1 we go.

Enjoy your next role as father and husband Champion.

Round 13: Belgium

Justin:

Welcome back old friend. Whilst in my last post I said I needed a break from F1, a month is long enough!

Ok, once again there was no real racing for first, right at the front. This has been my bugbear for a lot of races this year.

But, there was absolute mayhem and carnage on the opening few laps which distracted from Rosberg scampering off into the distance.

Max, Kimi and Seb nerfed into each other on the first corner and Max and Kimi kept coming across each other during the race too. The first corner incident really was not the fault of Kimi at all. Seb had to turn into the corner, but perhaps didn't see Kimi. He definitely didn't see Max.

Now, we'll give Max the benefit of the doubt for his first of many cock ups during the race. But, whilst a lot of people are blaming Seb...did nobody see that Max was actually fully on and over the kerb and he sort of just went straight on into Kimi?

He later moved over on Kimi at 200mph, after Kimi had made his move. Dangerous driving Max. If Kimi is bothered enough to be vocal about it after the race, then, well, you know it's a shit move mate.

The supidity of youth me thinks. Max later said he was pretty much driving angry after the first corner incident and said something along the lines of "better push him off than let him by".

Jesus christ. Calm down young man. That attitude will get people killed.

Elsewhere, I don't believe Rosbergs race was as easy as made out. The red flag restart will have required upmost concentration.

Great drives from Hulkenberg, Hamilton and Alonso (the latter two sailed through the grid as they started on medium tyres as everyone in front of them pitted due to safety cars and general utter carnage).

In all the mayhem I totally missed that Button had been punted out too!

So, nine points in the title race - Let's see a straight fight between the Merc boys in Monza please.

One last thing. Even if a driver I despised was the winner, I would never boo them if I was at a Grand Prix.

I couldn't believe it when Rosberg received a lions share of booing. Totally unnecessary.

Why boo him? It may have been the fact that the whole crowd wanted a Max win, but even still it's a bit harsh. I wouldn't put it past some of the Lewis fans too you know. There were a lot of Brits there.

Talk about football crowd mentality!

Oh, and K-Mag is fine. Yey. Typical F1 driver. 200mph crash, does his ankle in and is racing 5 days later. Most footballers fall over like they have been shot, then get up two minutes later totally uninjured. Pft.

Austria, Britian reviewed and a preview of Hungary

Austria:

Whoops! Nico probably thought, well Hamilton hung me out to dry so many times that this time it is my corner and I'll run him out of road. Hamilton was optimistic trying to overtake around the outside of a 90 degree right hander.

I love how nine out of ten British media reports said Nico bottled it. He didn't. He was experiencing a few brake problems, which resulted in him coming out of the first corner slowly.

Britain:

Fair play to Lewis. A dominant win. Nico again struggled in the wet.

Standout drive had to be Max 33!!

Hungary:

This is a must win for Nico, to turn the tide of momentum. It will ebb and flow through the year. He won the first four races. Lewis has won four of the last five.

Ah Hungary...memories....

Round 8: Baku

Justin:

Well, the track and Baku certainly looked the part. A beautiful setting for an F1 race and indeed an interesting track. Castle Corner looked insane...single file only through there chaps please!

Because we had incidents in each practice session and a chaotic GP2 race, people thought the F1 race would at least have a Safety Car or two. Alas, it was not to be and what we got was actually a fairly dull race.

In a shameless effort to get more views, I shall link to more external websites in this blog. I did it for Bahrain and got around 190 views! Compared to the usual 10 or so. Ehem.

Hamilton had all the momentum coming off a storming win in Canada.

Rosberg doing what he needs to do 
He was impressive in Baku. Hamilton was quickest in every practice session. Hamilton just went for it and was nearly a second up on Rosberg in P1. Rosberg took his time to catch up, but he was within a couple of tenths by the end of P3. Has to be said that Hamilton's instinctive racing style gets him a bloody long way.

I have to say, looking back on that last line...tortoise and hare anyone?

Everyone was saying that Lewis would have beaten Nico to pole had he kept it on track. But, he didn't keep it on track. He admitted he was just not on it. The car setup was changed and he just didn't feel the car, or adjust to it.

Indeed, Toto Wolff covers this in the column of Andrew Benson on the BBC website.

So, with Hamilton in the wall in qualifying, Rosberg raced off into the distance in the race. When his one pitstop came, he was 40 seconds ahead of second place (ok second had stopped), and he ended up 17 seconds ahead of Vettel.

The way Rosberg seems to be taking each race at a time impresses me. After two Lewis wins on the spin, it would be easy for Nico to lose his cool and let the momentum of Lewis affect him. In Baku he didn't.

I felt a bit for Lewis and the engine setting nonsense. The rules are currently a bit stupid. His engineers couldn't help him, resulting in him fiddling with his steering wheel for many laps at 220mph!

I also sort of agree with Andrew Benson here. Just, you know, for more views ;-).

Colourful radio!
Kimi - we love you! How many swear word bleeps can he get into one broadcast??!! Classic.

Lewis' radio messages were amusing too.

Driver of the day
Perez. Duh!

To Austria we go.

Anyone stumbling across this thinking it's not in-depth or whatever, this particular blog edition may not be I grant you. Check out the last 6 years though people :-).

Round 5: Spain

Justin:

Erm, wow. What an absolutely stonking race. Now, THAT's why I love F1.

Aggression Vs Defence = Crash, Bang, Wallop
Hamilton made a good start, getting the better of Rosberg, but then Nico caught a good tow and went around the outside at turn 1. A ballsy move, proving that he was ready to fight with Lewis in a one on one race. Then coming out of turn 3, Nico was a lot slower (which we later found was an engine mode issue...though I inferred at one point that it was a battery thing from Wolff's interview...anyway).

At first, after I'd finished jumping up and down and screaming at the TV, I thought it was possibly more Lewis at fault...or did I think anyone was really at fault? It looked to me like the overspeed had caught Lewis out a bit (though later he said he knew Nico had engine mode problems and that he had to go for the gap).

So, Lewis went aggressive and wanted to take advantage and pass there and then, Nico went defensive. Bang.

Nico was entitled to shut the door, in my opinion. Lewis is a racer and was going for a gap, but it was very much from the Senna school of "I'm coming through, don't you dare turn in, if you do, we crash!".

File under racing incident. The stewards and indeed Mercedes said no guy was 100% to blame. Judge for yourselves.

Of the two drivers, Rosberg looked slightly more annoyed in the post race interviews - See here a link to Channel 4 F1.

Hamilton seemed rather at peace with it all. I should point out that neither tripped up over the tricky interview questions. "Are you saying you weren't to blame?"......Nico replied "I didn't say that". Plus he said what was talked about in the de-brief stays private.

Lewis too was pretty fair and even handed in his answers.

Monaco next. That will lessen the tension for sure...

The race they left behind
It was an awesome race. 4 cars in with a shout of winning, near the end too, is somewhat of a rare sight in F1 these days.

I'm getting a bit annoyed with Vettel having a good old heat of the moment whinge when someone does something he doesn't like, such as try and overtake him - gasp! Then afterwards he admitted he said stuff in the heat of the moment when Ricciardo tried a bold pass into turn 1.

I think Ricciardo is completely correct to ask Red Bull why he was pulled in and changed to the slower three stop strategy, which seemingly released Max to victory on the two stop.

Congratulations to Max Verstappen though. He drove an absolutely flawless race and really has to be my driver of the day doesn't he?

We should spare a thought for Daniil Kvyat. I can't find the Channel 4 interview with him after the race, but boy did he look peeved.

Channel 4 coverage 
I was tweeting before the race started and noticed a few ney sayers regarding Steve Jones.

I like him as an F1 presenter. He works well with DC. And Susie and Alain were awesome today also.

People have short memories. It took Suzi Perry a while to hit her stride and she made a few errors in her first year. That's the nature of live TV.

I liked the Channel 4 nod to the fact that some people on the internet didn't like Jones much, when he was told by Susie to be a travel agent instead of an F1 presenter on their car journey to the track.

Steve is enthusiastic and happy to be there. To be fair, if I was presenting, it's probably not far off how I'd be. He's a bit of a fanboy. Anyone notice him touching Prost a lot during qualifying? Heehee.

Kudos to them bringing in Prost. That man is a legend. They also had to nearly cut him off from talking too long a few times. Hehehe.

The way they present too, is working well. Chopping and changing from one presenter to another, in a different part of the paddock. True, the BBC coverage did some of this, but C4 do it on another level.

To Monaco we go!!! The Mercedes boys will be trying to not touch each other at all.

PS - worth noting that Andrew Benson tweeted after qualifying that Alonso was right to leave his contract early, based on the fact he wouldnt have won any titles if he'd have seen it to the end of 2016. Bang on frankly. Ferrari were over a second behind the Mercedes duo.