Bottas is enjoying himself.
Lord Sir Lewis Hamilton of Stevenage
Max Verstappen
Evil Daniel Ricciardo
Less Evil Sebastian Vettel
There was something in the air that night Fernando
Sharl Leglerg
MSC mk2
Alex Albon
Alex Albon
Alex Albon
Bottas is enjoying himself.
Well he was anyway.
It's amazing how often that sort of thing happens to Bottas/Perez rather than Hamilton/Verstappen. Small margins I guess are what make them great.
Looks like it’s puncture o’clock
Would have been much more fun to have just left Latifi's car there until the end of the race, and let everybody get on with it for the final 3 laps.
Track worked out better for a spectacle than I thought it would.
Maybe all the non-overtaking circuits should just install massively dangerous kerbs to liven things up.
Sounds a plan. Even better than the sprinklers.
Toto just said Lewis was not running the new engine from Brazil in this race.
That could make things very interesting.
I think they know they'll need it in this stupid Saudi race coming up.
Karen Horner to the stewards for bitching about them earlier.
Ah, the world's fastest street circuit. Yep.
I know it's in the dead thread, but Sir Frank
One of the great chancers, Frank Williams. I don't think he really had any money until some time into the late 80s or early 90s.
I was surprised to read, that the most common F1 podiums shared is Hamilton, Bottas and Verstappen.
Team radio - Mercedes to the FIA
Mercedes sports director Ron Meadows: "Great job from the guys to get the circuit clean, Michael [Masi]. Really impressive."
Operation Butter-Up underway.
I've seen five seconds of Sharl Leglerg having a crash but I feel that qualifies me to assert that the proximity of the barriers and sandiness of the track is going to mean safety cars out the wazoo on Sunday.
I'm predicting ZERO overtakes this weekend. Even though it been designed with those long, high-speed sweeping corners, it's just way too narrow.
Probably great fun to drive around during practise, but during a race, going side-by-side at 180mph with a wall 1 metre to your right... Can't see many taking that risk.
I can see loads of crashes leading to overtakes though.
This first F2 race has been fantastic viewing, fearless stuff, they've been getting so close to the wall.
Hamilton in the stewards room.
Not sure impeding Mazepin should be an offence, mind. Ignoring yellows more problematic.
The yellow flag didn't show on his wheel system so it sounds like he's been a very lucky boy.
Slow cars are going to cause a big issue in Qualy here.
I'm getting horrible premonitions of cars flying over those barriers after contact in sector 3. They don't look high enough.
Horrible general aesthetic at this circuit, might as well be driving around a car park.
It does indeed look absolutely awful. I’ll go over 3.5 crashes and fuck all overtakes.
This circuit is fucking stupid.
Why does Carlos Sainz's very Spanish-sounding engineer talk to him in English? Guessing they make them speak English for the broadcast, but even so, doesn't that unfairly disadvantage those without English as a first language?
Some serious code brown moments out here. With cars side by side in the race there's going to be a massive shunt or two, surely.
Jesus, that was going to be the most epic lap for many a year from Verstappen there.
He’s well fucked that.
That was so close to mega from Max there. Just a bit too greedy in the last turn.
Offft. He looked like he was about to smash Hamilton’s time
Ooof.
It sounds silly but up until he hit that wall that was immense.
And he's still third so he has to do the interview.
His dash said he was 0.38s up entering the final hairpin. The lap was genuinely insane up until that point, it was on course to be one of THE great laps.
If the gearbox is done it’s game over for the championship.
I think the gearbox will be fine. The suspension looked like it took the brunt.
It doesn't take much, Leclerc broke one doing the same sort of thing in Monaco. Anyway, five places is nothing, he'll have that back inside a few laps.
As Hamilton showed in Brazil, grid places for these two are only relative to each other, the other 18 drivers aren't in the same postcode.
Pressure is building on the Dutch Lisp.
Verstappen is getting too much credit everywhere for going fast for two sectors when the aim of the lap is to finish it the fastest, so he was obviously going faster than his talents allow.
I don't know. That level of commitment, and pure pace, particularly given the circumstances of the title race, mark him out as being pretty special. Hamilton's experience won over Verstappen's impetuosity in the end, but that was a pretty special lap up until the final corner.
Agreed. It was phenomenal to watch. Totally committed and almost binned it 12 seconds in. Today's going to be carnage, though. Too many people have had moments. The speed of the track and lack of run-off is going to bring out a red flag.
I've not gone into an F1 race with so much trepidation as this. I just hope no one gets hurt.
Goosebumps stuff that Q3. Insane speed, insane commitment, insane bravery. Verstappen set the tone in T1/2, scraping the barriers on the exit. Brutal stuff. Do agree a bit re the danger of the track, although they're gonna be 10-11 secs down at the start of the race. But it reminds me a lot of Valencia, and we all remember the Webber incident...
I admire his chutzpah in going for it. Hamilton also did very well to put his own lap in at a time which forced/baited Verstappen to take those risks.