Monaco GP Race Report

 After a year off, the only year without a Monaco GP other than 1954, this race felt so nostalgic.  The track looks exactly the same as it did throughout my childhood, as it did in all the VT of races from the olden days.  The jewel in F1's crown sparkled brighter this year as a beacon of hope that the world restarts life post-covid, even watched from a lousy Level 3 postcode.

The main talking point before lights out was whether LeClerc's gearbox was definitely undamaged from the Qualifying incident.  Ferrari Team Principal Bennoto assured everyone as much as he could that they were as certain as they could be that it did not need replacing (and thus giving LeClerc a grid penalty).  He seemed to be pretty much ignored by everyone.  As it turned out, the gearbox failed on the way from the pitlane to the grid.  Ferrari rolled the die (despite insisting that they were not gambling) and lost everything at the casino that is Monte Carlo.  The pundits did a 180 and starting insisting it was probably a software problem, having willed him out of the race, they were willing him back in and back to the fairy tale.

As the mechanics struggled to fix the stricken car, the FIA-Team radio made a new appearance and we're all enjoying this new feature.  Ferrari confirmed a pit lane start for the home track prince.  Verstappen therefore got his pole and Bottas second.  Sainz and Norris behind them, given an extra boost.  In the end the damage was terminal and the dream for LeClerc finally fizzled out.  His team mate Sainz went on to drive an anonymous, heads-down race and finish second.

Bottas got a good launch at the start but Verstappen had firmly, nay aggressively, pointed his car across the track to cut off any ambitions he had to lead the race.  We then watched the drivers manage their tires and try not to clip the wall.  For 30 laps.  Then Hamilton pitted.  With no incident.  He got back out on track ahead of Giovanizzi.  Breaking News.  2.2 second stop for Hamilton.  This opened the floodgates.  Bottas came in right after Hamilton and never came out again.  Like many a particularly amateur DIY aficionado, the nut would not come off the tire.

Hamilton was cross to come out of the pits still behind Gasly's Alpha Tauri, then Vettel came out of the pits and something happened, we don't know what as the editor cut to a replay of Stroll doing a corner badly.  At this point, it was business as usual for Lewis, world champion moaning.  

For once, Red Bull pulled an excellent strategy out of the bag, whereas it's usually Mercedes who master the tactics.  Perez came from the back of the Q3 set up to 4th after the first (and usually only) pitstops.  A position he held until the flag fell, despite putting up a good chase after Norris.

Another sad moment of the race was Norris waving at his new teammate Ricciardo as he lapped him.  Karma came back to bite him as his tires started to give way, leaving him vulnerable to losing his podium place.  He was able to keep his track position, no surprise given the circuit.

Ten laps from the end, Hamilton came in for new tires to get the point for fastest lap, at 7th he wasn't far from being outside the top 10 and able to claim it.  (Once again, I state vehemently that I think this caveat sucks.)

Just outside the top ten point-scorers were world champion, Raikkonen, former Monaco winner Ricciardo and twice world champion Alonso.   How the mighty have fallen.

When Verstappen crossed the line to win the race, he also took the lead in the world championship.  A might moment for him and career defining.  A nice young podium, signally exciting racing for years to come.  

And no safety car!

What I want for every race is basically a wider Monaco.  No room for error.  Heartstopping laps.  A short lap keeping the cars together.  But with overtaking.  But no DRS.  This is what I want.

Monaco GP Qualifying Report

Prior to the race Nico Rosberg declared that Mercedes didn't stand a chance of pole on the Riviera, they were too far behind Ferrari and Red Bull at this glittering track.  And he was right.

Immediately prior to Qualifying, both Latifi and Schumacher crashed in FP3.  Haas couldn't/wouldn't fix the car in time, given a penalty identified for a gearbox change.  Williams worked hard, whilst celebrating 750 grand prix, and had the second Williams ready.  If being Mr Saturday was ever important, being so in Monaco is it, so all eyes were watching his team mate Russell.

Would Ferrari do a Monza and pull out all the stops to give Monegasque LeClerc the best chance on race day?  He had the fastest lap in Q2 to set this up.  Will Ferrari prove to be quick at other street and street-style circuits?  Giving us the thrilling excitement of three teams competing at some races this season.  Hard to believe we're only four races in.

At the end of Q1, Mazepin outqualified his team mate for the first time ever...I get the feeling he will be celebrating and bragging to all those who wouldn't know it was because his team mate couldn't go out in his car.  In all fairness, this was because Mazepin didn't crash his car prior to the most important Qualifying session on the calendar.

The surprise exit was two-times world champion Fernando Alonso, which will be a real low for him. He could't get the tires to work.  At this point Mr Saturday, George Russell was ahead of three world champions, Alonso, Vettel and Raikkonen.  Russell did go out in Q2 and was last in the session, did he save tires?  Not sure why he wasn't out for a final push at the end.

The big scalp in Q2 was Ricciardo, finishing 12th to Norris's final grid position of 5th.  Up until this point, it looked like it could go either way for Mercedes, who are infamous for "sandbagging".

It was tense half way through Q3, with three different teams in the top three after their first run.  The Sky commentary team were watching a dark cloud up on the hills, that didn't seem to be moving at all, in case it brought a rainy end to qualifying.  There is always the danger of a yellow flag slowing you down at Monaco too.  Would everyone make it safely through to the end?

Perez was caught out by kerbs and traffic.  Hamilton touched the barrier.  Ultimately LeClerc brought the session to an abrupt red-flag ending, 18 seconds from the end, with a crash, touching the barrier, taking off over the kerb and into the armco.  Rosberg, always the voice of gloom, wondered if there would be any damage to his gearbox which would give him a grid penalty.

Bottas took the safe opportunity of commenting that he was gutted not to have be given his final shot at pole as he felt confident, however we'll never know will we?  Verstappen's times looked more promising to take the pole from LeClerc, he didn't seem too disappointed with how it ended (perhaps relieved it wasn't him in the barrier?).  Understandably, LeClerc was very happy, he felt he had it after Q2 and found it difficult to focus going into Q3.  He says that he has been unlucky here before and not to count his winning chick before it's hatched (my translation), he should be worried, will one crash lead to another when it really counts?

Spain GP Race Report

Max Vestappen has been racing for 5 years now.  Where has the time gone?  He was celebrating 100 races with Red Bull.  A race weekend of hundreds.  And ten hundred in the stands for race day.  Unlike other tracks, most of whom have tried to disguise the stands, Spain felt empty and desolate during qualifying and not much better on race day.  Having a few fans in, you wonder what the atmosphere was like.

With Hamilton starting on pole, the race, as always, was his to lose.  However, no one has won from pole this year.  It was a clean first corner, with Hamilton making a poor start (by a gnat's scrotum) and Verstappen able to get past at the end of the straight. And then headed out by himself.

It was mooted before the race that the teams in the pits could make all the difference in a race.  With a snail-paced 4.2 hour, sorry second, pit stop for Verstappen, could this give the race to Hamilton?  It made no difference.  

Hamilton took a second stop which Verstappen did not, so then it was a waiting game to see whether he was able to overtake Bottas (arf arf) and then overtake Verstappen.  I very much enjoyed all the radio to Bottas: "we are following Lewis", "Lewis is on a different strategy from you", "Lewis is fighting for the win" and finally "Don't hold Lewis up".  In the end, Bottas did not make it easy for him.  A dirty protest there.  The pass for the lead was clean and confident.  With his win, Hamilton equals Senna's record making five consecutive wins on the same track.  It makes me wonder whether Hamilton has some team of archivists squirrelled away somewhere finding records for him to break.  None of this taking into account how many more races there are a season each year.

Verstappen was magnanimous at the end, he "could see it coming" and was a "sitting duck", speaking of working hard to catch up and pleased with the jump forward the team has made.  Button asked Bottas to try and find some positives from the race, he blamed LeClerc for holding him up at the start of the race.  Hamilton could have blamed Verstappen for the same thing.

A new feature for this race was hearing the radio between the teams and race control, namely between Wolff at Mercedes asking for blue flags to signal to Mazepin to let the leader, Hamilton, past.  This has huge potential for more interesting races.

There were lots of tasty overtakes during the race, Sainz on Norris for example, so it's not all doom and gloom and moaning about a boring procession.  If any of the top three had won the race it would have been well earned.  The only question is whether and why Perez is not up there, I guess he can take the Ricciardo defense that he has only just joined the team.   We know Red Bull have no patience with second drivers, he may only retain the seat for a lack of obvious substitutes.

Finally, Williams are very susceptible to wind issues.  Baked beans have been banned in their pit.  Russell finished a creditable 14th however.  Happy days.

Spain GP Qualifying Report

The paddock gossip this week has been whether Bottas will be replaced mid-season if he doesn't start performing.  Mercedes and their team principal, Wolff, issued an unequivocal statement that he has a year long contract to race with them.  I wonder if this includes becoming the reserve driver.  Like most politicians, if they clearly state there will be no change to current policy, a think tank is currently working on it for them.  I have also noticed that there has been more coverage of Russell in his Williams, following him around on a lap, in the pits.  Hmmm.  (Crofty also called him Bottarse during his commentary).  Also Mick Schumacher continues to receive more media coverage than any backmarker rookie ever.

Other drivers facing the pressure include Ricciardo, there has been intense scrutiny of his Q1 exit last weekend even though he made some places up in the race.  Button identified him as the big One to Watch this week on his Instagram Stories, even though he has spent 7 days going over his qualifying pace with the media acknowledging and explaining his failures.  Ultimately you have do your talking on the track and he did outqualify his teammate here.

Raikkonen being fastest of anyone in sector 1 for a significant part of Q1, was still part of the no surprises eliminated drivers: Tsunoda, Raikkonen, Schumacher, Latifi and Mazepin.

No surprises in Q2 either: Stroll, Gasly, Vettel, Giovinazzi and Russell out.

Surprises in Q3?  Perez spun mid-session bringing out yellow flags, obliging cars to slow down as they pass the scene of the crime.  This had an impact on a couple of drivers out on quick laps.  With two and half minutes to go, every car left their garage at the same time to put in what would hopefully be their very quickest lap.  In the end not many bested their first lap and predictably the top three are Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas.  I could have written this report before the session started.  The grid means that Hamilton has reached 100 pole positions, which is only important really in that it gives the media something to fill the time/columns with as they aren't able to discuss such a boring qualifying.  Please do leave a comment and tell me which is your favourite Hamilton pole lap (he names Singapore 2018).

Portugal GP Race Report

All the talk before the race was about the same two drivers as at the end of the last race out, George Russell and Valterri Bottas.  Could Russell score his first F1 points at this race?  Could Bottas win?  Toto Wolff commented that Bottas's rebound from his "very bad weekend" was impressive.  There was definitely a feeling that he needed to prove himself.

With no rain, unlike the last visit to Portamau and the track less new and slippy, the great unknown of the race was tire choice.

The first lap was clean with no incidents but by lap 2 Raikkonen was off and despite parking very cleverly near a gap in a gravel trap, brought out a full safety car.  As debris was cleared from the main straight, Bottas trundled the pack around the track for several laps before deploying a cunning plan and backing Hamilton into Verstappen.  This paid off and when they crossed the line, Verstappen was quickly in second.  The other driver of interest, Russell was swiftly overtaken from having held his position in 11th down to 15th over the next lap.  

The problem with Bottas' plan was that it put himself into the sights of Verstappen who immediately got the use of DRS.  Luckily, Hamilton also received DRS and was able to retake the place from Verstappen after a slight mistake.  As long as Hamilton and Verstappen continued to wrestle each other for P2, Bottas would be able to extend his lead.  However, a third of the way into the race, just as drivers were conserving their tires, Hamilton was able to make the overtake using DRS.  DRS definitely being the biggest player in this race.  The question now was whether Verstappen was quick enough/Bottas slow enough for him to lose another place.

From then it was slightly processional until the one pit stop in the middle of the race.  Verstappen pitted first and was able to take Bottas after his stop.  This brief spurt of racey action didn't last.  We saw Perez in the lead, which will look nice on his end-of-season briefing sheet.

The current expectation is that Mercedes will battle Red Bull and McLaren will battle Ferrari however Alpine were right in there, which is pleasing.  In particular, when Alonso overtook Sainz.  

As the grid settled into place towards the end of the race we were left with team mates battling each other.  Vettel overtook Stroll.  Alonso went for Ocon but was unable to secure it.  

Bottas and Verstappen both pitted at the end of the race to secure the fastest lap point.  Bottas claimed it, then Verstappen beat him...by going off the track limits, so Bottas got it back again.  Di Resta got to break the news to Verstappen during the interviews.  Hamilton claimed it was a very tough race, mentally and physically because of the wind.  Bottas finished third in the end, despite his "strong package", he seemed to have no understanding why he could not maintain the lead of the race and secure the win.  There seems to be a growing realisation in him that he is just not going to beat Hamilton.

And as for Russell, he finished 16th ahead of his team mate, the Haas and the retired Raikkonen.  Russell will not score points until he is driving a car with the race pace.

I was very pleased during the race when Crofty confused Alpine with Williams - not just me who is struggling with the blue liveries.

Throughout the race we were urged to Visit Portugal....when?  How?

Portugal Qualifying Report

Here we are, during this topsy-turvy season, in Portugal.  Racing here, on this typically motorbiking track, last season in October and now in May, it's a different track facing the drivers.  At a glance you can see that everything has changed in F1 as the drivers are wearing beanies more often than caps, they're not visiting the tracks during the hottest parts of the year as they normally would.

The final arrangements for the sprint race qualifying have been released this week.  My feeling is slightly that of being deprived of watching qualifying as it now takes place on Friday afternoon - I bet lots of F1 fans work on a Friday afternoon.  The sprint race will also deliver points, which seems unfair as you also win position on track for the main race.  I have a gut feeling that each sprint race will either be fantastic viewing or a boring procession.  There are three practice sprint races (Silverstone, Italy and TBC) this year but if it happens for every race next year, what about the processional races such as Monaco?  This will be pointless.  If there's any sort of incident though, the sprint race could be very good as there is no opportunity to reclaim places lost.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes and it means I get three evening of F1 on those weekends.

Sky F1 spoke to Bottas ahead of qualifying and he spoke about his problem this season is not being able to get his tires working.  This is a fine reason if you are fresh in the team, like Ricciardo at McLaren, Perez at Red Bull or Sainz at Ferrari but he's been in this car for a fair few seasons now, he should have the engineering relationships and feel for the car to eliminate this.  He tested for Pirelli between the last race and this, so perhaps this will help.

As quite often happens, teams bring upgrades to races but only enough for one car, this was the case for Aston Martin.  Who got the parts?  Four-times world champion Sebastian Vettel or the Canadian in his third season, Lance Stroll?  Stroll of course, his daddy owns the team.

With Qualifying underway, Perez spun with a tail wind into the gravel in Q1 but this didn't affect his place in the next session.  Russell continued his qualifying success, getting his Williams into Q2 every race so far this season.  What is notable about this is that he beat Ricciardo in McLaren (with his team mate finishing the session in second and a hearty swear on team radio, thinks he'll feel and drive better after a sleep) and Stroll in Aston Martin (with the upgrades).  In the end he didn't make Q3 but was "best of the rest" in 11th.  It's all going in the right direction.

At the sharp end of the grid, Verstappen just couldn't put the lap together, especially after his first was deleted (track limits), costing him the pole position as the wind picked up towards the end of the session.  The fact that he wasn't much lower down the grid than third was mostly due to other drivers not being able to best their initial lap.  Bottas scored pole position, a much needed victory over his team mate, Hamilton.  He puts this down to "hard work pays off", makes you wonder whether he believes the other drivers, at the top and peak of their profession spend their off-time eating doughnuts on the couch.  What sort of hard work has he been doing?  All the British media are secretly pleased that Hamilton didn't score his century pole as they can string this out for another race or two.  Ocon scored a pleasantly high margin over veteran team mate Alonso, position 6 to position 13.  Vettel was finally able to show his worth finishing 10th to Stroll's 17th.  Sainz starts 5th ahead of his established team mate LeClerc in 8th.  It wasn't all good news for team newcomers as Norris starts 7th ahead of Ricciardo's 16th.

Today's suggestion for improving F1 is to paint these controversial corners, which are drawn to drivers' attention as to where the track limits are.  Let's paint them red or do it virtually like the advertising hoarding, this would make it much easier for us laymen to spot when a violation has occurred.

I wouldn't say the grid promises a spectacular race.  Will the wind affect it?  Last year it was incident-packed so fingers crossed...