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 :-).

Round 6: Monaco - Shades of Senna vs Mansell in 1992

Justin:

Don't you just hate that. I wrote a fairly long blog and it somehow all got deleted. Urgh. Here we go again.

The Monaco Grand Prix was fairly good fun in places. Lewis being chased very closely by Max in the latter stages had shades of Senna keeping Mansell behind him in 1992.

It all started with Charles LeClerc. I was a huge fan of his "I'm going to overtake and race hard or crash trying" attitude, after his awful qualifying session. He was clearly pumped up and driving angry and made a couple of balls out overtakes before he pranged.

Talk about the spirit of Gilles Villeneuve, driving back to the pits with the back tyre falling off all over the place.

This in turn was the event that kicked off a safety car period. All the leading cars came in and Max jumped to second with a clearly unsafe pitstop release, hence his 5 second penalty.

It was quite a dramatic race late on, especially when Max made a lunge on Lewis and they touched.

A tip of the cap to Lewis Hamilton for a truly stunning win, it has to be said. And, have a look at a 360 camera on the front of his car during his qualifying lap here - quite terrifying actually and reminds you just how bloody talented he, and indeed the entire grid, are - to go through these tight streets, at those speeds, so close to the walls. Unbelievable.

Big shout outs to Carlos Sainz finishing 6th in the McLaren and the Torro Rosso pair in 7th and 8th.

Niki Lauda

Many people have said many touchingly eloquent things about this absolute legend of F1.

I was desperately sad to hear the news last week, and instantly texted my esteemed F1 colleague (the guy I started this blog with).

I watched Rush again a couple of days ago. What a film, what a rivalry, what a friendship and what a portrayal of Niki.

I just love the bit where he and his future wife flag down the two Italian chaps in the countryside somewhere in Italy. They completely ignore her and walk up to him with a huge hug..."NIKI LAUUADDAAA!!!". Brilliant.

To me and many, he was the hardest, bravest and most courageous chap in F1 history. After his crash in Germany in 1976, he was near death and yet returned just over a month later to race to 4th place in Monza. Absolutely astonishing.

Perhaps, arguably, equally as brave was him parking his car after the first lap in a rain soaked Japan that same year. He knew the risks of driving in F1 and wasn't prepared to go a certain percentage beyond that. So for the title showdown, he was his own man and simply parked because the risk of crashing fatally in that horrid downpour was too great to him.

To be a champion, you have to really believe it. You did Niki, and we all know you are and always will be an F1 icon.

The title race and Ferrari

Ferrari aren't in the title race I hear you ask? You're right. They are nowhere near it.

Aside from the certain victory that mechanical failure snatched away from LeClerc, they just haven't been anywhere near Mercedes all year so far. Not good enough.

The car isn't good enough and I have no idea why they are making team orders an actual thing. The whole "how will Seb cope with LeClerc?" isn't really a thing for me now, as they are both faffing about for 4th and 5th usually.

I kind of agree with Eddie Jordan, in that when something goes wrong they immediately chop and change and there is no real consistency at the top of the organisation (where there is at Red Bull and Mercedes).

Bottas is hanging onto Hamilton's coattails still in the title race, but I fear Lewis will start to pull away a bit now - he is nearly one race win clear, with Canada coming up where Lewis is always strong.

To Canada we go next - good memories :-).

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 2019 is here!!

Justin:

So, I started my first blog of 2019 about a month ago, then paused for thought...and here I am completing it now. A lot has happened! I'll start where I finished, with my initial thoughts...

 

An evening with Ross Brawn OBE

Imagine my surprise about a month (well, 2 months now really) or so ago when my Dad sent me a link to an interesting looking event taking place at Wycombe Swan.

Ross Brawn was being interviewed by Steve Rider at Wycombe Swan for a charity event. Fantastic.

It was a quite fascinating and insightful evening, showing never-before-seen photographs of Brawn's career alongside he and Rider talking about all things motorsport and F1.

A couple of things stood out for me. When he was asked about the future of Silverstone, he was pretty evasive and political. Ok, you could argue as Managing Director of F1 that is his job now! It seemed to me that his mindset on that night was "well, we'll have a British GP but it probably won't be at Silverstone". Brutal. F1 is so complicated. Silverstone is one of the best attended races of the year, but it's comparatively bloody expensive to attend for fans. I mean, last year General Admission tickets for 3 days were around £170. I spent £240 for a bloody amazing grandstand seat at the Canadian GP! Ok, also Silverstone is not government funded like many other races worldwide.

You can see Brawn is very fond of Michael Schumacher for sure. When Steve Rider went digging about Michael being a bit of a git sometimes on the track, particularly against Damon Hill, Brawn sort of said "well, I recall Damon running into him a few times", and never really admitted or answered the original question. A true politician haha.

The Sky Sports vs Terrestrial TV point came up. More or less, what Brawn said here was that Sky was paying 5 times the amount for exclusive live footage (did I dream this number??), and he runs a commercial company. Ouchie.

Sky has been kind enough, with enough pressure from Liberty no doubt, to cut a deal that allows Channel 4 to show highlights for 2019 and the British GP live. But this is a deal that has Sky rules all over it. Never-the-less, Channel 4 do an awesome job (more later on that).

As I say, it was a fascinating evening and Steve Rider is a legend. He did the gig for free of course and jetted in the same day from a family holiday and was leaving early the next day. What a guy.

And of course many thanks to Ross Brawn. I actually didn't realise he started his career at Williams.

Whilst I admit I'm slightly unsure what to make of him, I'm glad he is on the F1 management team on the whole.

My tenth year!

Just realised, this is the 10th year of my F1 blog. It started out as a partnership with the person who I can only name here as my esteemed F1 colleague and best friend. I realise I've gone down to 3 or 4 blogs a year in the last year or so (since my colleague retired from his special event guest blogging duties). When we started it was a blog after every race and then some! A partnership not unlike Frank Williams and Patrick Head, James Hunt and Murray Walker, Damon Hill and Heinz Harald Frentzen...eh.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary, I pledge to blog at least after every race, if not more. I'm going to try and entice my colleague back under some sort of "it's ten years, you must!" emotional blackmail thing.

I just looked back to our blogs in 2010. In November that year, we were both predicting an Alonso title win! How wrong we were.

Funnily enough, our first blog entry was for the Aussie GP in 2010 (the second race that year, but our first blog).

Here's to 10 years!!

Fantasy F1 teams

I submitted my 3 fantasy F1 teams just in the knick of time. I based them on previous teams, for the most part. Though I cannot select Alonso now. That said, I have shown a worrying turn in that I finally selected one of Vettel or Hamilton. Oh well. Let's see. One of my teams has Kimi in it. The name of the team is "Bwoah!". I've also gone for a lot of Haas over the 3 teams. I think they are going to be bloody great this year, best of the rest outside the top 3 and may even pick up some podiums.

*Update - nobody out of 62 team entries picked Bottas as a driver. That's a lot of missed points.

 

Moto GP

Whilst this is nothing other than an F1 blog, I should note that I have an increasing interest in MotoGP (and indeed I love all forms of motorsport - aside from Formula E!), and I thought the first race in Qatar was amazing. I'm a bit worried about Lorenzo though. He's beat up and at the back whilst the others are scoring good points. Whilst I was watching though, I thought wouldn't it be great, if F1 had as close and as crazy racing as MotoGP. At the front. For the win.

Channel 4 coverage is back - love it!

The Channel 4 coverage was so much better than Sky from 2016 - 2018 (yes I admit I paid for one race on Sky and thought the coverage was ok, but a tad dull). It kind of sucked in a way, that C4 inherited a contract where they couldn't compete for live coverage from 2019.

They've had a few rules imposed on them by Sky

I'd imagine 99% of C4 viewers won't respond to Steve Jones saying "Watch the race with us, or alternatively you can watch SkyF1", with an instant subscription to the enemy. It's all good.

Steve, DC, Mark and Ben are joined this year by some brilliant additions to the team. Billy Monger and Stefano Domenicali (who actually doesn't look entirely unlike my blogging colleague) are insightful, knowledgeable and have huge passion for the sport.

Phil

 

 

 

 

Stefano 

 

 

 

 

 

Australian GP review

I'm going to put it out there. I'm not as convinced as others by the victory Bottas achieved here.

Ok, he was 20 seconds down the road at the end. But, Hamilton's car was damaged and he was simply stroking it home. Bottas got a flying start for sure, and was dominant thereafter. But it would have been interesting to see Lewis closer, car undamaged.

Bottas could prove me wrong of course. He needs to do it consistently and batter Lewis in the next few races. Then we have a fun season ahead.

The pace of Ferrari was a complete letdown. They were nowhere, and Vettel was overtaken by Verstappen in a Red Bull Honda. Hopefully Ferrari will come back in the next race. With that, Max and Lewis vs Valterri, we could actually see some fighting for the win. Though I won't hold my breath.

Driver of the weekend has to be Lando Norris. He qualified 8th and looked mighty in the race too. McLaren have a megastar on their hands right there. It will be interesting to see how Sainz reacts to being soundly trounced at round 1 (Ok, his car did blow up early on, but he was nowhere in qualifying).

The 1 point for fastest lap actually added a fun element later on, when Lewis, Valterri and a couple of others went for it with a few laps left. In fact, the two Mercedes boys defied team orders to take it easy.

To round 2!!

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 :-).