Saudi Arabia GP Race Report

Alonso was starting his Aston Martin from the front row for the first time for the team since 1959, although he wasn't starting it from the right place it turned out.  I don't know if it's the broken bones or the improved performance of his daddy's car but the press are devoting a lot of coverage to Stroll.  Overall it's great to have a new team to talk seriously about.

Alonso made an excellent start and took Perez.  Stroll took Sainz.  But then we were told that Alonso was being investigated for being in the wrong place in his starting box.  Piastri was also immediately into trouble with missing body parts and had to pit for a new front wing.  It looked like Perez would possibly take Alonso when he got DRS, although this would be unnecessary as the Spaniard was awarded a 5 second penalty, he did it anyway.

As Verstappen scythed his way through the field, Alonso was given a cheap pass for his penalty as his team mate Stroll stopped on the track and a safety car came out.  Was this a Singapore-style strategy?  As the race restarted, Perez was first, followed by Alonso, Russell and Verstappen.  The Ferraris were 5th and 7th.  Everyone got away cleanly when the safety car went in.

Alonso had predicted that Verstappen would be in second place by lap 25, half way through the race and on lap 25 he overtook Alonso to make the prediction come true.

Albon suffered from brake issues and was slowly out of the race.  Meanwhile, Russell and Hamilton were battling, with Russell refusing to follow team orders to let his team mate through. Lots of team mates were running side-by-side: the Ferraris, then Alpines, Haas and McLaren.

In the end, despite some mild arguing between the Ferrari drivers and the Mercedes drivers, it was an easy one two for the Red Bulls.  Alonso was very happy with his podium position in 3rd and continued to be very cheery when he was awarded a 5 second penalty for a jack touching the car during his first penalty.  Why was this awarded 35 laps after the event?  Could it be that Mercedes or Alpine reported it late?  I'm sure he was equally cheery to be reinstated after the media circus had departed.  Even Russell who briefly held 3rd place from the press conference to midnight-ish felt it was the right decision for Alonso to be reinstated.  It will be interesting to see if the Aston Martins, running the Mercedes engine, will continue to be stronger than the works car.  Will there be foul play with the engine supplier?  Will Ferrari hook everything and have a strong weekend.  Will Ricciardo do a bit of media work in Australia and mention how relieved he is not to be driving that McLaren (note, also a Mercedes engine).

Saudi Arabia GP Qualifying Race

Pole position seemed to be Verstappen's to give away.  I felt like he would want to stamp this track as his, just as he did in Bahrain, and prove that he is the clear Number 1 driver at Red Bull, as Perez took pole here last season.

As we went into the first Qualifying session, there were lots of spins and Norris tagged the wall.  The Red Bulls and Aston Martins were very strong, with Ferrari behind them.  The Williams were both out, with a yellow flag affecting their final runs.  Norris was out after his incident and Sargeant ran high over the kerb and hit the wall.

Delightfully, in the second session Verstappen had a big problem, stuck in 3rd gear.  Other than Verstappen in 15th, there were no big surprises out.  Hulkenberg continues to outshine his more established Haas team mate, Magnussen; so both Haas out and both Alfa Romeos.

The field was wide open with Verstappen out for Q3.  Perez, ultimately in the fastest car on the tarmac took the pole with the teams jumbled up behind him.  LeClerc took second but will drop back 10 places for a grid penalty.  Alonso was thrilled with third and was grinning from ear to ear as he will start on the front row.  Russell continues to drive strongly ahead of his seven times world champion team mate and qualified 4th/3rd and was looking forward to fighting with Fernando.

Drive to Survive Season 5 Review

I don't know about you but trying to squeeze in 10 episodes of this before the start of the season was impossible.  The series is a great warm up to the season but why can't Netflix bring it out during the long, cold Winter?

The season opened with Mattia Binotto and Gunter Steiner hanging out together and visiting Mattea's vineyard, his hobby, now presumably his full-time occupation.  It took a long time to get around to the Mercede's porpoising.  It briefly looked like they weren't going to mention Russia either but then it came.  Moving through the Bahrain race weekend, I had completely forgotten about Gasly's fire, I suppose this is Netflix gold though.  The main focus was on Haas, with comeback kid, Magnussen, finishing somewhere.  They blurred over exactly where he finished but he did finish and the comparison was made with Ferrari's 1-2 result.  The edits really stretch things sometimes.

The second episode opened looking at on Mercedes and Wolff.  I'd forgotten just how bad the bouncing had got, how much pain Hamilton was in and how much more dominant Russell looked.  There seems to be more access than ever for Netflix into FIA led meetings, the team principals featured more than ever this year.  Then events reached Silverstone, where Zhou had his massive accident.  There was a lot of unseen footage from this and Russell's involvement in it, when he stopped running to help.  Ultimately Russell got to watch the race with Tom Cruise.  The spin on the race was that Hamilton was battling for the win, when it was actually a battle for third and a podium.  If you only watch Netflix, you would come away thinking race results were very different from reality.

On we moved and episode three focused on Ferrari and Miami.  Halliwell showed up everywhere a Spice Girl shouldn't be, making insightful comments about how well Ferrari are doing.  We saw the Ferrari chief strategist fumbling about with a piece of paper, trying to remember what the team should be doing under a Safety Car.  It was an early insight into their downfall.  Monaco was sped through (including the delayed wet start).  The engine failure in Baku was barely mentioned and Jack Nicholls gave some commentary to make the point that they made the same mistake in Canada as in Monte Carlo.  Then more focus on Silverstone, where Sainz scored pole and got two chances at staying ahead of Verstappen off the grid.  After that the two drivers were allowed to race at the front of the pack and then not allowed and were given team orders to switch positions.  At this point, everyone is blaming Binotto, which signposts where this is going.  We hear Sainz begging to attack LeClerc rather than defend from Hamilton and he does overtake him.  By the end of the series, I don't think Ferrari fully got the criticism they deserved.

Episode four was an accounting exercise for Haas, which started as a tribute to Michael Schumacher and than quickly became a catalogue of his son's errors over the season and how much it cost the small team.  With Guenther repeatedly on the phone to Gene swearing like a trooper, we then see Magnussen's camp (who received glowing reviews in ep.1) dripping poison into Steiner's ear.  They paused at Baku and I racked my brains to remember whether this was a great race for Mick that exonerated him or another crash.  It was neither but he finished whilst Guenther criticised him from the prat perch.  By Silverstone, Schumacher had enough stickers on his reward chart to be allowed to overtake Magnussen.  For some reason, he radioes in to see if he is allowed to overtake cars ahead of him.  He gets his first points in F1 finishing 8th.  There wasn't even a conclusion about whether Schumacher would be staying in F1.

By episode five, I'd picked up that the overhead pitstop shown at the start would be the team the episode focused on.  So ten episodes, ten teams, I was looking forwards to the Williams episode.  This one opened in Oxford but it was to be all about the only French team on the grid - Alpine.  It was mentioned early on that Alpine had invested $4 million in Piastri so far.  A reserve driver has never featured so heavily in the show before.  We've pretty much stopped being told who wins any race, with mid-team battles being the be all and end all.  Otmar Szafnauer is doing his best in front of the cameras but comes across in the same way that Rishi Sunak does when he has to meet a bus driver.

By now, we'd been waiting for the Piastri/Ricciardo/Gasly switcheroo and episode 6 served this up.  The editing leant heavily on Norris being slightly backstabby, Gasly being an all-conquering hero and Ricciardo having dramatically burnt his bridges with Renault/Alpine.  By now any involvement from Webber or Alonso was forgotten.  There was no on-track action at all and so by episode 7 I was ready to see drivers race and we were back focusing on the front of the grid.  The production was looking at Monaco and Perez' contract.

In episode eight, Yuki was back and more petulant than ever.  They focused on his home track, where he scored a point and the ed op was that he was a winner.  De Vries insisted that he will wipe the floor with him this season (I think he'll potentially be gold for the next series) and Gasly painted a picture of Yuki as a misunderstood youth.

Finally, episode nine, where Verstappen was being given lots of cake that he's not allowed to eat.  As the episode would show, you can't have your cake and eat it - vis-a-vis money and spending it on F1.  Horner was disappointed that there was "no room for manoeuvre" in the rules.

The final instalment came at last and I realised that other than a reel from Instagram, we hadn't heard from Vettel at all.  Over and out.  The episode focused on the battles between Mercedes and Ferrari for second and McLaren and Alpine for fourth in the constructors' championship.  The edit made it seem like LeClerc won the final race of the season, when in fact he was second and claimed the superior spot for his team.  Alonso had to retire his Alpine yet they still beat their rivals.  The end of the episode was a tribute to the departing Ricciardo, Mr Drive to Survive himself.  It really did give you an insight into why, perhaps, no one wants him to drive for them: drinking, swearing, clearly partying as hard as he plays.  Yet I do wonder if this a persona and whether the programme will do as well without him (he is a producer of an F1-based TV drama, so understands the need to sell his brand better than most of them).  As his best bits concluded, the attention switched to Vegas because the tracks might become more interesting than the drivers.  And where was Williams' episode?

Bahrain GP Race Report

I thought the most exciting thing about going into this race is how close Qualifying was but the race showed that (apart from McLaren), it's close all round.  However, Wolff has written off the Mercedes as a championship winning car.

Albon messed his tyres up going to the grid but that didn't stop him winning a point in the race.  LeClerc chose tyes over grid position and the race was to prove whether that was a good shout or not.

The start was fairly textbook with LeClerc taking Perez and Sainz staying in 4th. Hamilton overtook a few cars including his team mate.  Then Stroll nudged Alonso; he didn't do any damage so his pocket money won't be docked.  Williams also made up a few places and would barely be commented upon.

The Mercedes and Aston Martins battled hard, although it is hard to tell the cars apart from their livery.

McLaren had a dire race with a problem resolved at the pit stop for Norris's engine and a problem with Piastri's gear box resulting in the same, then retirel.

After the first round of pit stops, which came fast and frenetically, the order at the front remained the same.  The top 10 had the two Red Bulls and 2 Ferraris at the front, then, in a random order, the Mercedes and Aston Martins with Bottas and Albon in the mix too.

Halfway through, DRS gave Perez the chance to overtake LeClerc for a Red Bull 1 2.

Norris and Ocon battled it out to see who could spend the most time in the pits.  Norris had to visit regularly to top up the air in his hydraulics.  Ocon got a 5 second penalty for being out of place on the starting grid plus some more time to change his front wing, then a 10 second penalty for not taking the first penalty correctly, then 5 seconds for speeding in the pit lane to take a penalty.

The best battle of the race was between old foes Alonso and Hamilton.

Just when he was comfortably in third, LeClerc's engine failed.  This brought out the Virtual Safety Car, which would allow Alonso to cool his tyres to better hold off Hamilton.  At least an engine failure cannot be blamed on recently arrived team principal Vasseur.

With 12 laps to go, Alonso overtook Sainz for the podium place I had predicted.  With 4 laps to go Alonso radioed back to the team that this is a "lovely car", a dangerous move which could have seen him jinx his podium place.  As everyone crossed the finish line, there was no attention on the winner Verstappen but all eyes and coverage on Fernando.

Looking elsewhere on the grid, ff Hulkenberg is this much better than Magnussen, how bad must Mick Schumacher have been...and Mazepin!  (Although Hulk did sustain some damage to his front wing).  Zhou scored the fastest lap although I still say the rules are unfair as he won't be awarded the extra point because he did not finish in the top 10.

Bahrain GP Qualifying Report

It was straight into drama at Bahrain, LeClerc lost a piece of his wheel arch or "wheel brow", which brought out the Red Flag. I had assumed that the Red Flag was an unseen smash but no, just to collect a piece of carbon fibre.  Note to self - add extra hour to all Qualifying session recordings.

Alonso is definitely playing in the top tier with his Brawn...sorry Aston Martin.  Russell found some time and the Ferraris were flying too.  Stroll had his time deleted, which put the sore-handed Canadian under pressure (the cameras did find a disappointed-looking Felipe Drugovich, the reserve driver for the race).  Everyone went out for a final flying lap at the end of Q1 except for Sainz who was sitting in first.  The track was getting quicker and quicker, even though the night was drawing in.  Kinda rookie De Vries was out first, followed by Sargeant, Gasly Magnussen and Piastri ahead of him in the grid.  Norris was lucky to keep his position as it was identical to the Williams but he set his time first.  All three rookies were out.  More notably the returning Hulkenberg was 6th ahead of his team mate out in 18th.  Albon finished 9th, a strong showing from him.  Stroll was behind Alonso in 6th, showing the Aston Martin might be a strong contender this year.

In Q2, the Red Bulls came back strong and Albon suffered a broken front wing on his Williams and didn't set a time.  It was all shaken up in the final seconds, Ocon and Hulkenberg made it through with Norris, Bottas, Zhou, Tsunoda and Albon out.

In the final session, it was all plain sailing until LeClerc jumped out of his car after his first lap to save a pair of soft tyres for race day.  Hulkenberg didn't even attempt a lap so qualified 10th.  Ocon trounced his new team mate, Gasly to qualify 9th.  In the end the Red Bulls made it look easy, taking the front row followed by both Ferraris, knocking Alonso back to 5th next to Russell.  He was ahead of his team mate, Hamilton in 7th, then Stroll.

There were lots of shots of Mick Schumacher sat next to Toto Wolff watching in the pit lane.  When Williams say they are racing Alpha Tauri and Haas, does that mean they've discounted McLaren as lesser competitors?  McLaren certainly look to be struggling, in the same boat as the ailing Mercedes.

My podium prediction for the race is LeClerc, Verstappen and Alonso....let's see.  It feels both wide open and a foregone conclusion all at once.