German GP - "Amazing"

Ferrari's shambolic loss of power during qualifying should have been a hint of the topsy turvy, eventful race that lay ahead.

When I saw rain on the grid parade, my heart soar.  This is the sort of race where unexpected teams score points, LeClerc and Vettel were going to storm through the field (with LeClerc breaking his duck) and Raikkonen was starting from 5th.  I knew a good race was on the agenda but...

By the end of the first lap, Raikkonen was up to 3rd.  By the end of the second lap, we had our first spin, by Perez.  There was a safety car and by the fifth lap, Kimi was 11th.  A few quieter laps and then Sainz was off.

Just as Francesco Bernoulli was commenting joyfully on Hamilton's 5.6 second pit stop, LeClerc was off into the gravel and hoarding and we felt that any chance of a good race was gone.  Then, on the same lap, Hamilton lost his front wing at the pit entrance (jammy s*d), the crowd were cheering, Mercedes mixed up the tyres and kept changing their mind.  An investigation was launched about whether he entered the pits on the wrong side of a bollard.  This is all on one lap!  Even better, he was given a 5 second penalty a few laps later for going slow behind the safety car.

We started cheering on the minnows who could achieve greatness but they didn't want to unfortunately.  Hulkenberg went into the barrier from a potential 3rd.  Then Stroll started leading the race...!  We're only two thirds of the way through the race.

With eleven laps to go. Hamilton spins off and recovers, despite the crowd's cheers.  Bottas followed him soon after but couldn't recover.

Unfortunately in the last few laps, Vettel overtook Stroll for third, then Kvyat for second.  What a shame that Kvyat wasn't let off press duties to go and see his newborn daughter; he took advantage of being made to do interviews to make a covert pitch to Red Bull for his old seat back.  Hamilton didn't do any interviews.

A final note, that I have just discovered the injustice that you have to be in the top ten to score a point for fastest lap...never here folks.