Saudi Arabia GP Qualifying & Race Report

Well, everyone was very happy with the result of Qualifying, Checo Perez taking his first pole position, with a lap that he couldn't explain.  Mick Schumacher lost control of his Haas in a big incident; big enough that we weren't shown it until he was in the ambulance, having spoken to the medics.  For those of us who watched Senna's crash, it feels like such a paradigm shift.  With his car finishing in two parts, he wasn't able to take part in the race, which is a huge shame as Haas need to capitalise on being ahead of other, better-funded, bigger operations.  Magnussen started in 10th.   It's no shock that there was another big smash at Jeddah, it's a tricky, street-style circuit with concrete barriers.  The big shock was that Hamilton couldn't put the lap together to get out of Q1 and started 15th.   Williams seem to have been completely unable to work the regulation changes to any kind of advantage, starting 16th and 18th.

Following all the drama with Red Bull Power Trains (their engines) last race out, Tsunoda breaking down en route to the grid wasn't a good sign for those Red Bulls trying to catch up with Ferrari and Mercedes.  Perez was still in the lead off the grid, with Verstappen overtaking Sainz.  The Alpines held their places and theirs was also the early battle, the team mates really going head-to-head down the main straight, with Alonso finally getting the DRS advantage.  They did help Russell keep ahead in 5th though.

Ferrari and LeClerc tricked Red Bull into stopping early, even radioing in "Box to overtake".  The advantage was definitely given when Latifi (the championship decider from 2021) crashed into the straight wall and brought out the Safety Car.  Ricciardo, who went for an early stop and committed to a one-stop race, was also a big winner (or so it seemed).  Betting on the Safety Car coming out at Saudi is all the bookmakers' favourite.

After the Safety Car went in, LeClerc held on to first place.  And the race trundled on...

Suddenly, lap 36, Bernie's Big Magnets (a bit like his plan to use water sprinklers) were switched on and Alonso lost power, then Ricciardo and then Bottas was in the pits retiring.  And the Virtual Safety Car was brought out.  After a lot of clearing up, there was 9 laps of racing to go.  Verstappen took LeClerc, LeClerc took Verstappen.  Verstappen might be an aggressive and instinctive driver but LeClerc has the smarts.  With 3 laps to go, Verstappen finally got it right and now had to defend.  Ferrari took second and third.  Hamilton gained a point for finishing 10th.  Magnussen got 2 points from Haas.

Just to make Williams' day even worse, Albon and Stroll came together.

Going Up

• Say what you like about the Saudi's but they know how to paint some damn fine run-off pictures
• Alpine - team mates allowed to race
• Marshals - handling any and all crisis'

Going Down

• Sportswashing

Bahrain GP Race Report

LeClerc seemed genuinely puzzled by his pole position but I think fans were quietly confident that he would be able to convert it to a win.

A new season means new changes to adapt to.  Can you remember that the pink-liveried Alpine is not a Force India car?  Can you remember that Bottas has left Mercedes despite qualifying his Alfa Romeo in much the same position he would have been?  Can you believe a Haas started 7th?  Can you adapt to watching live TV were people are packed in together and not wearing masks?

Amazingly, they were all clean off the grid.  Bottas went from 6th to 14th, Perez from 4th to 6th.  Ricciardo had an awful start with sparks flying from the base of his car as he porpoised down the straight.  Magnussen climbed to 5th from 7th and stayed with Hamilton.

The first round of pit stops came early.  LeClerc came out right in front of Verstappen, from the lead.  Despite the colder tyres, he was able to keep the lead too, for a lap anyway and then he took him, then the positions reversed again.  And again and again.  You can definitely race closely under these new design regulations.  Bravo.  

This was repeated after the second round of stops.  Verstappen lost out again and came on the radio: "I took it slowly on the out lap and I will never ever do it again."  This was just the start of the day's Dutch Rage.

Verstappen and Perez came in for a late third pit stop to put themselves firmly behind the two Ferraris, which was the strategy Sainz called for near the start of the race.  Next thing we know, Verstappen is frantically radioing in about his tyre being heavy.  As LeClerc looked safe again, 25 seconds ahead and 12 laps to go, Gasly's Alpha Tauri is spotted on fire at the side of the track. A Virtual Safety Car is announced, which would hopefully have kept Verstappen away from LeClerc but the the real version is called.  LeClerc boxes.

LeClerc managed the restart much better than Verstappen, who did at least keep Sainz at bay, until there were three laps to go.  Verstappen just couldn't keep his cool under mechanical pressure.  Once Perez and several others passed him, he pitted to retire the car.  Further bad luck for Perez as he seemed to be developing the same problem and battled to keep the beleaguered Hamilton behind him.  The final lap arrived and the porpoising of Hamilton's car seemed to be saving Perez but his engine failed in the middle of the second corner.  He spun and had to sit in the middle of the track, hoping nobody would hit him face on.

With catastrophic failure from Red Bull, Magnussen did finish 5th, Bottas 6th and Zhou scored points on his debut.  In many ways, Mercedes got a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

In other good news, Ricciardo finished ahead of Norris, which should provide a small confidence boost, despite those positions being 14th and 15th.  The Ferrari one-two was celebrated which some communication in Italian over the radio, which is fitting.  

Will Red Bull (and Alpha Tauri) solve these engine and electrical issues soon or are they handing Ferrari an easy lead into the championship?  Horner felt positive that he has a competitive car as they were running at the front, I would suggest a car that cannot finish a race is not a competitive car.

Bahrain GP Qualifying Report

Qualifying kicked off with a written test, as the FIA report on the last race of last season was published just in time.  Ultimately it was down to "human error" so onwards and upwards this season.  They did decide that team principals, shouting at the race director, live to the watching world, may have put undue pressure on him.

Pre-season testing, with the new high levels of downforce brought on by ground-effect, made porpoising the word of the week.  It looked hideous on the Mercedes, painful and impossible to drive.  At least it's only on straights as I can't imagine you could go through a corner accurately with this, it makes me wince just to look at it.  Everyone agreed that for once, Mercedes saying they aren't as quick as others, wasn't sandbagging.  This was proven to be the case and Verstappen commenting how pleased he was with it.

What were the surprises of qualifying?  Despite amazing testing in Barcelona, McLaren just didn't deliver pace.  Covid did not serve Ricciardo well, as he qualified 18th.  Zhou on his debut gets through to Q2 in his Alfa Romeo.  Showing that money can't buy you success, Latifi was plumb last (with Albon scraping though) and both Aston Martins, with Hulkenberg out-qualifying Stroll.  Magnussen went through in 5th in his new Haas seat.

There were no huge surprises for who was knocked out in Q2: Ocon, Schumacher, Norris, Albon and Zhou.  But Magnussen through to Q1 in his heroic Haas.  Bottas also through in his Alfa. All the hope was that LeClerc could find something in his Ferrari to take the pole from Verstappen in his Red Bull.

Through to Q3 went three pairs, both Mercedes, both Ferraris and both Red Bulls, then a mixed bag of Alpha Tauri, Alfa Romeo, Haas and Alpine.  The older. more experienced drivers of Alonso, Bottas and Magnussen showing how it's done.  LeClerc took the pole, which promises a fantastic season if Ferrari can continue to bring this kind of pace and he's highly skilled at qualifying.  Sainz split the two Red Bulls behind his team mate.  Hamilton was 5th but did out-qualify his young pretender team mate, Russell, who was also out-qualified by the man he replaced at Mercedes, Bottas.  Magnussen feels "unbelievably lucky to be in a good car", which he doesn't need to say, so the car must be performing quite well.

The star of the show was obviously baby L-Mag.

Abu Dhabi GP Race Report

The Decider in the Desert.  It's only live once.  Channel 4 stumped up a few million to broadcast the whole race live.  Sky spent the big bucks getting Rosberg, Button, Hill plus Brundle.  All the coverage was on Verstappen and Hamilton, not even much on Horner and Wolff or Red Bull and Mercedes.  It was more like a boxing match than a race.  Norris in third was briefly touched upon.  If the championship had been decided the week before, it would have been all about Raikkonen (and Giovinazzi) leaving Formula 1 and Bottas' and Russell's last race for their current teams.  Raikkonen was wearing a throw-back helmet from his McLaren years.  Giovinazzi was wearing a throw-back helmet from Raikkonen's Ferrari years.  Which speaks volumes about his F1 career.

Bottas gave Hamilton a hug after the anthem.  Norris said he was "going to go for it".  Not sure for what.  Lando, someone has to be third.  Disappearing into nowhere, we found that Mazepin wouldn't be taking part in the race, having tested positive for Covid.

Norris lost "it" at start and several places, running wide.  It was not to be his best race.  Everyone will be hoping that McLaren come back stronger next year.

The start was clean, with Hamilton taking the lead from second.  Then the gloves came off at Turn 9 with Verstappen pushing hard and Hamilton running off.  Initially it looked like Hamilton would have to give the place back.  However, Mercedes believed that Hamilton hadn't gained a lasting advantage.   They had touched briefly and it was unclear whether this would have a lasting impact.  The stewards made a quick decision: no investigation necessary.  Blood boiled around the world.

On to lap 14, Verstappens gambles and pits to put on hard tires, that they've never run before.  It was predicted to be his one and only stop.

Six laps later, Perez did what he could as the team mate with the most to offer.  There was a tremendous battle (all thoughts of Tsunoda or Alonso defence gone) with the lead going back and forth between himself and Hamilton.  When Verstappen caught them up, Perez was called a "legend" and an "absolute animal".  

Raikkonen went rallying with a slide, spin and tapping the wall.  He got it back to the pits but had to turn the engine off on his final race.  The footage from his pit was longest we've been off-track in a  very long time.  Whilst he was retiring, Russell lost power in his Williams and came back to the pits via the run offs and also retired.

The dice was rolled again when Giovinazzi retired his Alfa Romeo at the corner of turn 9 and a Virtual Safety Car was called.  Hamilton did not come in to pit and both Red Bulls did for fresh tires.  They had nothing to lose as they were not in the lead of the drivers or constructors championships.

We got to enjoy a lot of helmet cam - during the race, this time installed in LeClerc's hat, particularly during his battle with Bottas and in the pit exit, which looked very scary, tighter than a 70s concrete car park.

It looked like it was game over for the Red Bull camp.  Horner said, "we will need a miracle in these last 10 laps".  Then came a slow puncture and a pit stop for Norris, caused by the curbs.  His mum and dad, who were at the race, are clearly not a good luck charm for him.  Hamilton was then warned to keep off the curbs, just in case.  Would this be the miracle?  No.

With 5 laps to go, Latifi put his Williams into the barriers and across the track as the consequence of another championship decided by a Schumacher smash.  Just as the safety car was called, Verstappen came in for tires and Hamilton was told to stay out.  There was one long swear over the radio from Hamilton.  He would have lost track position if he came in.  Now the audience waited on tenterhooks to see if there would be any more racing, with Max starting on fresh tires right behind Lewis or would the race (and championship) conclude behind the safety car?

Perez came into the pits for a fourth time, giving Sainz a podium.  No reason given but it sounded pretty urgent.

Then the miracle came, the lapped cars were not going to be allowed to unlap themselves, which played right into Hamilton's hands.  Then Masi made a decision, the cars in between Hamilton and Verstappen would be allowed past and the safety car was to end straight away.  Hamilton backed the pack right up, almost trying to force Verstappen to overtake him, which would result in a penalty for Max.  The Dutchman pushed him all the way to the line and got past.  Yes, it was aggressive.  Yes, it was hard racing.  The last lap was exquisite racing, literally edge-of-the-seat But it was the race of a champion and a champion he is.

Hamilton looked very lonely heading to the podium.  Everyone was Max's pal, they're all more like his age.  Then Vettel and Schumacher came over to give him a hug.  Having had a bit of Angie-time, Lewis approached Max and congratulated him.  Max then praised Perez as such a supportive team mate, which is more than Lewis had this year.  Verstappen made a very eloquent speech after the podium about how you hope for points, podiums, wins but you hope when they play the anthem it's for you.

Mercedes made two protests, both of which were rejected by the stewards.  Masi: "Toto, that's called motor racing."   Michael Masi has become the Alistair Campbell of F1, he shouldn't be the story but he is.  In the end, he did allow the drivers to race.

On to final thoughts...Vettel, Alonso and Raikkonen were the drivers who had made the most overtakes this season.  Experience over car performance.  Alex Albon was seen talking to Geri Horner in front of the podium; does he know about her previous career?  It's a sign of how popular he is amongst F1 fans world wide as Raikkonen was named Driver of the Day, decided by a phone-in.

Predictions for the future?  Many many Angry Toto memes.  Possible court action.  Mass Covid outbreak in the F1 community as a result of a lot of hugging post-race.  There will be a squad of children in a third world country all wearing Hamilton 2021 championship winner T-shirts.

Abu Dhabi GP Qualifying Report

 Good news if you're a Kelly Piquet fan, see also Christan Horner or Toto Wolff.  All eyes are pretty much on 4 men this weekend with the occasional nod to Raikkonen, Russell or even, maybe, Giovinnazi.

On to Qualifying and there was bollards on the track.  Bit like the last race.  The Red Flag was put out.  Bit like the last race.  Mercedes were dominant in the first session.  With Tsunoda and Gasly doing very well.  At the bottom end, both Haas, both Williams (Mr Saturday no more) and Raikkonen's Alfa Romeo all predictably out.

The second session was a parade as well.  The only interest was when Verstappen flat-spotted his tire, which was his race tire.  A lot of cars went out at the end of the session, which may have caused an incident of note, but no.  The only surprise was Gasly out in 12th.

The third and final session was also fairly dull.  As Hamilton crossed the line, he was unable to do better than second and the crowd roared.  Bottas and Perez were unable to make the top 3, with Norris in third with an excellent performance.  Red Bull worked hard for that pole, with the perfect slip stream set up from Perez.

With the race and championship leaning in Hamilton's favour, this was the result that we all needed and wanted.  Obviously we were aware that the stewards could find anything overnight to ruin it.