He’s been extra annoying today.
He’s been extra annoying today.
Is this going to be a standing start? You’d have to fancy Hamilton if it is, Verstappen has been awful off the line.
Red flag again. Fuck this.
What a shambles.
Just make a fucking decision.
No more racing anyway.
AlpineGasly returning from the grass and immediately picking the line at the other side of the track is pretty... daring, I suppose.
Also lol at Sergeant just randomly driving into the rear of whoever at the back.
The seeds are being planted for the Gasly-Ocon implosion.
Sainz five second penalty. This is actually going to be quite funny across the line.
Is there any footage of Gunther Steiner doing the rounds? Ted said he’s fuming and we all know how entertaining that can be.
Them announcing that Sainz penalty before the lap really increases the likelihood of a collision behind the safety car. Don't know if it would have been possible for them to wait longer, but it seems not that smart.
A post race red flag. How fitting.
Hulk broke down.
Wasn't getting up for this, what's with the four DNFs on lap 56? Some kind of safety car restart crash?
Hamilton and Alonso on the podium in 2023 is mad.
Red flag standing start. The Alpines smashed each other up out of T1.
There's going to be a year full of this bollocks, isn't there?
I've just caught up with it. Christ. Firstly Sky really need to make it easier to get to a race re-run or highlights online without spoiling the thing themselves. I managed to avoid all internet and spoilers since bed last night and got to the click to start the video but the thumbnail was of the three on the podium ffs.
Ferrari continue the lols. Both of their drivers with daft moves and for once Strulovic not at fault.
George or his engineer are a bit dim. That was always, always going to be a red flag in modern F1. Threw away at least a second place there. I feel like Max had a much better car on those hard stint(s). Some encouragement for Mercedes though. If these updates they were on about the other week do come, they might be able to put on a consistent show for 2nd while Max pisses off up the road.
Aston continue to plug away as the 3rd best and should do so while Ferrari continue to make a show of themselves. I dont recall either driver putting much of a foot wrong in this one.
The calamity at the final restart was something, but to lose 8(maybe 9) runners from a modern day F1 race is a proper throwback.
The Alpine guys didnt wait long to give us a Team France implosion either. 'mon Gasly.
Also lastly, I see Haas have officially protested the race result... why?
Yeah, French superteam crashing into each other in race three is proper chef's kiss stuff.
Hulkenberg was running in 4th before the last red flag came in but the first sector hadn't been completed to make the position count. Two-lap sprints like that are always going to produce carnage, though.
Why did they restart it again under the safety car and fuck over everyone who had safely negotiated that chaos? Back in the day they would just call off the race with a red flag at that stage (cf Canda 1997).
First sector shouldn't exist in the sporting regulations, ffs.
Madness.
The sector 1 free hit/reset feels like it makes those red flag restarts even more dangerous.
Alonso's radio is pretty much the only thing interesting in F1 these days. I love how he knows everything about everything.
Quite what arcane magic Newey has wrangled to make that DRS of theirs work the way it does will be interesting when it finally becomes known, although, that said, I reckon you could disable it and Verstappen would probably still win.
Newey is another laughable individual. His first absurdly dominant car was 31 seasons ago.
It was floor effect then wasn't it? I think his dominance here is due to him mastering his car design, then when it went away from floor effect nobody needed to be good at it. Fast forwards to 2022/3 and he's produced another dominant car while his opposite numbers are only just stopping the cars bouncing all the time.
Are they just getting heroic amounts of downforce from ground effect allowing them to run smaller wings or are they stalling them [or whatever the term is] in some way to reduce drag?
The key is "sealing" the floor with air vortices around the edges and Newey seems to be a master at that. Therefore, they don't need to be as reliant on the over-body air flow to generate downforce and can run really skinny wings; the rear wing is so small that it is virtually a flat plane when open which is why they're so fast in a straight line despite the Honda engine not having an obvious horsepower advantage.
That DRS pass had no struggle to it.
4 weeks now to Baku. Most teams first update/upgrade potential race.
I'm unsure what it'll bring except the fact that Ferrari will fuck it up.
A 4 week break? That’s some load of shite this early in the whole thing.
Underrated performance of the day was Norris. That McLaren looks like absolute dogshit in a straight line.
I think they need to change the way DRS operates slightly as it always seems a bit of a cheek when someone breezes by with the wing open and then gets to open it again in the next zone due to the detection point [obviously this is track specific but seems to happen quite a lot]. Or maybe it should just be less of a thing in the 'closer following' era.
Also, wasn't Masi back [in some capacity, if only as an Australian] at this race? End of race clusterfucks obviously follow him.
Is it bad that I'm more excited that I've got races from 2000 to tuck into because this sounds like a shitfest.
2000 was a great season. The front two both at their very best.
I find myself weirdly keen to see Schumacher win that 'first' title.
Yeah, reliving the journey again has really made that feel like a big payoff.
I hope you're all ready for SPRINT SHOOTOUT.
The previous sprint weekend was easy enough. Qualy on Friday sets the Sprint race on Saturday. That Sprint race then gives us Sundays order for the race.
Now you get Qualy on a Friday, which now sets Sundays grid. Then on Saturday you get SPRINT SHOOTOUT which sets the grid for the Sprint race itself.
At least it’s a completely separate thing now and can be forgotten about.
Still waiting for reverse grids. Even if its for bo points
Nah, the front-runners would've made their way back after 4 laps.
Just sort it out.
Leclerc is a wizard around Azerbaijan.
Can't wait to see how they fuck it up on Sunday. Also can't believe that my first chance to actually watch a race properly this season is going to be this junk event.
I'm not sure what else the Ferraris could have done there. Just an unfortunate part of the track to catch them at.
Nothing. He got distracted and tried to blame them for it.
What’s this thing about Norris not having the tyres?
You can only use one set of tyres per SPRINT SHOOTOUT session. They also must be new sets. He has no new sets of the yellow marked tyres so he can't take part.