Canada GP Race Report

The mood in Montreal was definitely to cheer the under groundhog, Alonso.  He'd come out with some fighting talk about overtaking Verstappen as soon as possible and everyone wanted him on the top step come the end of the race.  It was a good day for the Alpine sponsors.  Fernando was like an adorable grandfather at his teenage daughter's 21st birthday party, lapping up the attention.

Everyone pretty much got away clean at the start with a little front wing damage for the high-starting Magnussen coming into contact with Hamilton.  When DRS was enabled Sainz was straight past Alonso.  There was overtaking up and down the field as drivers out of place moved up and some took unusual pit stops.

9 laps in and Perez lost power, the pendulum has swung back from Red Bull starting the season with reliability issues to Ferrari and now back again.  He considerately parked it near a gap in the barriers to be moved swiftly.  There was a Virtual Safety Car, which many teams chose to pit under, including Verstappen which left Sainz in the lead.

Then Lap 20, Schumacher suffered a power unit failure and parked up.  Virtually out came another Virtual Safety Car and all those that didn't pit last time, pitted this time.  Apart from Alonso, so Verstappen passed him for the lead with Sainz in third.  Hamilton was in front of his team mate Russell, albeit with fresher tires for the fresher driver, so things could get nicely spicy for the Mercedes drivers.  I don't know if team orders were in play but nothing came of it unfortunately.  LeClerc also chose to stay out and take track position.  McLaren Ferraried things up by double stacking the drivers and then taking extra long to do each.

Hamilton overtook Alonso, who then took a regular pit stop, bringing him out in 7th.  The Big Question, as always though, is how are Ferrari going to ruin their race?  LeClerc was stuck behind Ocon for many many laps with Alonso behind him in the other Alpine.  Eventually, the team agreed to pit him.  However, they decided to go for a slow stop, which brought him out behind a long train of traffic in 12th.  They're ingenious and imaginative that team.

Meanwhile, Verstappen was complaining about his tires on the radio, so Red Bull pitted him from the lead.  Only to bring him out right next to Hamilton, who immediately overtook him.  The Dutchman was immediately on the radio swearing at his team.  Not to worry though, as Hamilton was in the pits the next lap, giving Russell third place on a different strategy.  Or was it?  One lap later and Russell was in.  By this point Ocon is running in 5th and Alonso in 6th, showing just how badly Alpine got their strategy wrong.  Just as Sainz and Ferrari had decided to wait for Safety Car to pit, Tsunoda put his car into the wall and ta-da...a Safety Car.  Now it was just a question of a fresh tire overtake at the restart - the biggest test of the Spaniard to far in his career.

In the closing laps, it became clear that Sainz did not have what it takes to take the lead.  Alonso asked for team orders to overtake Ocon but was refused.  LeClerc finished a creditable 5th behind the Mercedes but it's not saving his championship hopes.  The whole weekend showed that it doesn't matter too much if you choose an outstanding up and coming young driver or an old, experienced world champion, if you don't get the strategy right, you may as well employ Latifi.

Canada GP Qualifying Report

A wet race meet had been on and off since the teams touched down in Montreal and Qualifying Day saw just the right amount of rain fall; not so much the session was Red Flagged and sufficient to make it interesting.  The Goldilocks amount of rain.

Rain promises a shake-up in the order of results.  Gasly got himself in trouble with the stewards by driving the wrong side of a bollard.  Canadian Latifi was unable to get through to the second qualifying session, with his team mate managing to do so.  The other Canadian, Stroll, was also out along with team mate Vettel.  LeClerc, Albon and Stroll were investigated for going too slow.  All these investigations came to nothing...

In to session 2 and Albon went off the track, appearing to crash into the wall but no, he kept it going and rejoined.  He is just what Williams need.  Perez then showed Albon how it's done with a full frontal into the tech-pro with a thud and brought out the Red Flag as he couldn't find reverse.  With 8 minutes left of the session, torrential rain would have been very good fun, as Alonso would have been on pole position.  

LeClerc, already awarded a grid penalty for taking a fourth engine of the season, didn't go out to put in a lap.  Alonso held onto that first place for a while before Verstappen swooped in to claim it.  Along with Perez and LeClerc, out went Albon (starting 12th, well done), Bottas and Norris, who had a problem with his car.

In the final session, it all came to down to the very last laps the drivers put in.  Verstappen had quite a secure hold on pole position.  Sainz came close to challenging for it and took second from Hamilton before a storming Alonso, took that away from him.  Russell gambled on slick tires and could only manage 8th.  One wonders if Toto made that call just to stop Hamilton whinging for a bit as he out-qualifies his team mate for once.  Alonso is definitely the fan's favourite and he says he's going for it on race day.

Azerbaijan GP Race Report

I started watching this race knowing who won but not how or why.  So after the start, where Perez had a strong lead over pole-sitter LeClerc, I began to worry that Red Bull are killing the sport in F1 by denying Perez victory.

Obviously Williams are killing themselves in the sport by hanging about on the grid for too long and then taking their stop and go penalty without also changing the tires.

First scalp of the race was Sainz as something failed on his car and he pulled to the side of the track.  This brought out a Virtual Safety Car call, LeClerc pitted immediately and the Red Bulls did not.  It was not the perfect pit for Ferrari, loading the pressure on their one remaining driver.

Lap 15 and it did appear that Verstappen took Perez in a clean overtake with no team orders.  Then we heard the radio and Perez had been told not to "fight".

Next clue as to how he won it; LeClerc's engine blew as he was going down the straight in the middle of the race.

A further clue, being told to slow down by his team with a strong warning that "you know what can happen here..."

The Ferrari-powered cars continued to drop like lead balloons: Zhou then Magnussen.  The latter needed another Virtual Safety Car to clear the car.  The cars flew in to the pits for a "free" stop.

After all the engine failures, the next part to fail was the DRS wing.  Firstly, Tsunoda's split in two and had to be fixed with gaffa tape in the pit, next Verstappen was told not to use his for the rest of the race.  Not to worry as he was out ahead with his wingman Perez behind him.

Further back the McLarens were having a spat over who got to be the first one to cross the line and the Mercedes drivers were being bounced to pieces by their car.  Next thing we know, Hamilton takes Gasly for 4th, which means that they are 3rd and 4th.  Still it's better than Ferrari.  And Latifi gets into trouble for ignoring blue flags.

Russell took a strong third (Mr Consistency, as his team called him, sexy).  Alonso had a strong race but we didn't see anything of him.  Ricciardo finished ahead of his team mate but I'm sure the media will say Norris was told to stay behind him.  The Big Question as we leave the street tracks behind was whether team orders were at play at Red Bull, Perez did take the point for fastest lap.  Also why was Hamilton voted Driver of the Day?  Lots of overtaking I suppose and he could barely get out of the car for back pain.

I'm really enjoyed the return of the televised cool room, especially with the screen warning the drivers not to swear.  They decided not to say anything just in case.  Not long to wait to see if the tension in the teams boils over, next week Canada.

Azerbaijan GP Qualifying Report

Firstly, Qualifying was delayed.  Then, nothing much happened for ten minutes or so.  Our predictions were LeClerc for pole (me), Verstappen for pole (him) and Schumacher (me) and Latifi (him) to bring out a Red Flag during Qualifying.  It was Stroll.  Leaving lots of drivers in a precarious position of trying to qualify with two and half minutes left.  Still, it's a street circuit, and one should know to get a banker lap in.

With seconds to go, thirteen cars were out on track and hoping to pass the chequered flag in time.  The Haas made a last-minute overtake to be ahead of the McLarens on track.  The back of the train were further hindered by a Yellow Flag in the second sector of the track.  Albon was calling for Alonso (the bringer of the Yellow Flag), to be penalised for holding everyone up.  There were no surprises with the two Williams drivers and the two Haas out with Stroll.

Qualifying 2 was then held up by Stroll's team mate Vettel, hitting the wall (who still made it into the final session???).  Luckily, for the drivers, not for Aston Martin, he was able to reverse and get back to the grid.  The session continued with no great drama.  Both McLarens out and most of the usuals through.

The final Qualifying session was, once again, down to the Red Bulls and Ferraris.  Perez, having looked very strong so far,  conveniently wasn't fueled in time and let Verstappen out cleanly.  Not to worry, he still popped his car ahead of this team mate to take second.  With his recent record, Verstappen may fall out of love with this team quickly.  Sainz didn't have the pace to match his team mate, who pulled his trade mark single spectacular lap out of the bag to take pole.  There was no way the Mercerdes were in the mix as the bouncing looks unbearable, I don't know how they're going to keep it up for 2 hours.

Johnny Herbert has been let loose in the paddock again, not really asking questions and bewildering the drivers.