Tag: Race Report

2020 Russian GP report | Bottas wins as Hamilton is penalised

Posted on by James Mackenzie
A tale of rule-breakers and risk-takers.
Valtteri Bottas wins the Russian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Daimler AG

Valtteri Bottas finally took his second victory of the 2020 season at the Russian Grand Prix, as Lewis Hamilton suffered a weekend plagued by drama.

Things began to unravel for the championship leader during Q2 on Saturday. He ran wide during his first lap, which led to his time being deleted, and was just about to complete his second attempt when a Sebastian Vettel crash brought out a red flag. That led to a mad dash as most of the field attempted to get round and start a final lap in the two minutes remaining.

Hamilton passed the line with one second to spare and scraped through into final qualifying. His pole lap was characteristically emphatic – over half a second clear of Verstappen and Bottas – but he was always aware he would now have a fight on his hands in the race, as he had been forced to set his Q2 lap on the lesser-fancied soft tyre.

His problems would worsen before the lights even went out, however.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-n9K7TxY4

He asked his team whether he was able to do his practice starts further down the pit lane as there was a lot of discarded rubber at the usual spot. The team confirmed – seemingly unaware of just how far down he meant – but the stewards saw it as an infringement and Hamilton was eventually given two five-second time penalties – one for each illegal practice start.

This, combined with his unfavourable tyre strategy, effectively removed him from the battle for the win and reduced the race at the front to a procession. Bottas didn’t put a foot wrong and claimed a comfortable victory, slightly narrowing the gap to Hamilton in the championship standings. He repeated his ‘open letter to his critics’ from Australia 2019 over the radio after the chequered flag but, frankly, there is only so much you can boast about a weekend where you qualified seven tenths behind your teammate and then profited from him receiving a penalty in the race.

Max Verstappen put two tough races in Italy behind him and resumed his M.O. this year of outperforming his Red Bull, miles clear of his teammate, and occasionally picking off a faltering Mercedes when the opportunity presents itself. Hamilton was never able to close in on the Dutchman, as he nursed his hard tyres for almost 40 laps and had to settle for third.

More First-Lap Chaos

Image credit: Reuters

Picking up where Mugello left off, there were plenty of incidents during the opening lap at Sochi. Carlos Sainz suffered a quite embarrassing retirement as he drove clean into the wall whilst attempting to navigate the bollards on the outside of Turn Two, hampering his teammate in the process as he bounced back onto the track. And a couple of corners later, Charles Leclerc clumsily understeered into Lance Stroll, pitching the Racing Point into the wall and out of the race. That brought out an early safety car.

Once the race was back underway, Sergio Pérez got himself into fourth with a bit of trademark tyre preservation and comfortably held that position to the flag. An ungainly piece of synchronised swimming between the Renaults resulted in Daniel Ricciardo picking up a five-second time penalty, but he had enough pace to extend a gap from Leclerc and hold onto fifth, whilst teammate Esteban Ocon kept the fast-finishing Daniil Kvyat – on a contra strategy at his home race – at bay to complete a decent haul of points for the yellow cars.

It was another tough weekend for Alexander Albon. More than a second slower than Verstappen on Saturday – and seemingly flummoxed as to why – he qualified 10th, was then given a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change and ended up at the back of the pack after the first lap mêlée. Red Bull gambled on switching him to the hard tyres under the safety car but getting to the end on them was always going to be an impossible task and, after another stop, he would eventually recover to 10th and a single point, behind the AlphaTauri pair.

Alexander Albon at the Russian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Breaking the Rules

So, is it more a case of drivers breaking the rules…or that the rules themselves are broken?

I feel like a broken record, having to speak about stewarding once again, but here we are. With controversy currently surrounding Hamilton, Leclerc and the bollards at Turn Two, the Russian Grand Prix became a story of rules as much as racing.

The Sochi track has never been a popular one – neither amongst drivers nor fans – and Turn Two has become a particular point of contention. George Russell describes it as “one of the worst corners of the calendar” and even proposed an alteration to it in a drivers briefing earlier this year.

It is just a poorly-designed corner – it’s as simple as that. It should be the main passing opportunity on a lap consisting mostly of dull 90-degree corners, but the way it narrows makes that difficult and, in past years, has led to much cutting of the kink which immediately follows. The attempts to counter that with strict measures such as time penalties is somehow worse though.

It really does feel like the FIA has lost its way when it comes to stewarding. We are now in a situation where Ricciardo – and later Albon – can receive five-second penalties for a tiny mistake, running slightly wide and in the process actually losing time, but Leclerc can take another driver out of the race and get away scot-free because it is the first lap of the race.

The alternative for Ricciardo and Albon was to attempt to get over to the bollards that define the accepted re-entry to the track, but those were criminally close to the wall and arguably less safe than rejoining in the normal manner. Whilst it was an undeniably humiliating crash for Sainz, it was on the cards. If you totally abandoned the corner – à la Verstappen on the first lap – then navigating the bollards was easy enough. But if you genuinely attempt the corner and end up that little bit wide, it’s practically impossible to get over to the bollards in time, as demonstrated by Romain Grosjean, who smashed through them in his attempt to follow the rulebook and brought out a VSC whilst they were replaced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8N-UWbt4is

It is like the bigger picture has been totally abandoned by the FIA and its stewards.

Similarly, we had the penalties for Hamilton. A minor discretion in a “grey area of the regulations” – as described by Mark Webber and David Coulthard – before the race led to a significant in-race penalty. Hamilton was also awarded two penalty points on his licence, but they were later rescinded when the stewards determined that the team was at fault rather than the driver.

Why that’s the case here but not in Monza, where Hamilton also received penalty points for following a team order to pit, isn’t clear. Neither is it clear why it took so long for the stewards to change their mind, considering the radio of Hamilton being told he could perform the practice starts there were broadcast on the global feed immediately. And I won’t even get into the current conspiracy theories doing the rounds regarding steward Mika Salo and the Finnish commentary team receiving word on the penalties 15 minutes before they were announced…

Coulthard sums it up nicely when he says, “we’re just being bogged down by stewards getting in the way of allowing a sporting contest to play out”. This is needless micromanagement that has lost all sense of perspective. The stewarding process needs to be ripped apart and rebuilt from the ground up.

The Russian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Can Lewis Hamilton match Michael Schumacher’s win record this weekend? Not this time.

Or will Valtteri Bottas continue his good form of past years at the Sochi track? …Kind of.

Or could a team other than Mercedes win the Russian Grand Prix for the first time?! Of course not.

Can Alexander Albon push on now that he’s claimed that first podium? Nope.

Who will top the midfield battle? Sergio Pérez in terms of a driver, Renault in terms of a team.

2020 Tuscan GP report | Hamilton takes 90th victory amid Mugello chaos

Posted on by James Mackenzie
So, shall we just have all the races in Italy then?..
Lewis Hamilton wins the Tuscan Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead with a hard-earned victory at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas and Alexander Albon, who earned his – and Thailand’s – first ever F1 podium.

Whilst it was Bottas who had looked on top for much of the weekend, Hamilton snatched pole position by a few hundredths of a second on Saturday. He got off the line badly, however, and was easily beaten to the first corner by Bottas. He may well have fallen further back in the pack but for Max Verstappen’s engine issues – the Red Bull driver pulled alongside Hamilton but suddenly lost power and caused those behind him to get off the gas.

Things went from bad to worse for Verstappen as – now back in the midfield – he was caught up in one of two crashes at Turn Two. Pierre Gasly found himself sandwiched between Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean and the now interlocked cars collected the Dutchman with only Räikkönen avoiding the gravel trap. Grosjean somehow escaped back to the circuit, but the race was over for Verstappen – his second successive retirement – and Gasly – from first at Monza to last at Mugello.

Meanwhile, just ahead of that crash, slight contact between Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz had seen the McLaren spin round and collect the hapless Sebastian Vettel. The pair would at least make it back to the pits whilst the safety car had been deployed.

Mugello’s set of crashes was far from over though.

Barely seconds after the safety car had peeled in, there was a massive, multi-car pile-up before most had even crossed the start/finish line. Bottas had not put the pedal to the metal until the last minute – to minimise the slipstream effect for those behind – but confusion reigned behind as drivers saw some in front accelerating. The concertina effect, from drivers realising they had gone too early and braking, led to Antonio Giovinazzi and Sainz slamming into those ahead of them at terrifying speeds.

A massive crash at the Tuscan Grand Prix.
Image credit: LAT Images

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, but Giovinazzi, Sainz, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi were all out the race. Inevitably, this brought out a red flag.

When the drivers lined up for the restart, there were just 13 cars remaining as Esteban Ocon’s Renault had also been forced into retirement with irreparably damaged brakes which had literally been on fire during the safety car period.

As the lights went out for the second time, the Mercedes switched places again, Hamilton getting into the slipstream of his teammate and completing a crucial move around the outside of Turn One. Behind them, Charles Leclerc had got himself up into an unlikely third but would fall back steadily as the Ferrari’s lack of pace became evident at what was turning into a predictably tainted 1000th race for the Scuderia.

Renault successfully executed an undercut at the first stops to get Daniel Ricciardo past Stroll into third place, whilst Albon had recovered from a poor restart and was back up to fifth, behind the Canadian. As the trio navigated the high-speed Arrabbiata corners, Stroll suffered a left-rear failure and crashed heavily, completing the rare event where all three podium finishers from the previous race fail to complete the next. Once again, the driver escaped unscathed and, once again, the red flag was shown.

No red flag for three years and then suddenly three in the space of seven days.

And so, the drivers lined up for their third start of the day, Bottas knowing he just had to repeat his feat from the original start to all but wrap up the race win. He didn’t manage it, though – possibly hampered by the tyre marbles that now adorned the left side of the circuit – and, in fact, fell behind Ricciardo.

He was soon back ahead but could do nothing to close down his teammate, who rubbed salt into the wound with an unerring fastest lap on the penultimate tour. The world champion is now just one win short of Michael Schumacher’s record and seemed quite overwhelmed by the proposition of matching it. “It just doesn’t seem real,” he said, “it’s ultimately a privilege to be in a position and have such a great team and a car to be able to deliver weekend in, weekend out. But I never thought that I would be here, that’s for sure.”

It was once again so near and yet so far for Ricciardo and Renault as Albon banished memories of his former podium near-misses and passed the Australian around the outside of Turn One to finally claim that elusive trip to the rostrum.

Image credit: Red Bull Racing

Hopefully the amiable 24-year-old can use this as a stepping stone to get his season back on track. We’ve seen how good he can be on a Sunday – two instinctive, brave moves earned him this podium finish – but he must improve in qualifying to help cement his position within the team. Red Bull want their second driver to at least be within the pit window of the Mercedes cars and there are rumours beginning to swirl of them considering Pérez or Nico Hülkenberg for next year.

Pérez himself came home a solid fifth – at his first race since discovering he would be replaced at Racing Point by Vettel in 2021 – ahead of Lando Norris, on a surprisingly uncompetitive weekend for McLaren, and Daniil Kvyat.

The Ferraris did at least salvage a double-points finish at their celebratory weekend, but that is not much of an achievement when only 12 cars reach the chequered flag, one of them being a Williams and the other a wounded Haas. They were, at least spared the ignominy of being passed by George Russell for the final point.

Russell was distraught to have missed out on his first F1 points. He had been running a strong ninth when the final red flag was shown and lost out on the restart, but the team are making progress and Russell’s time will come.

Dissecting That Crash

Post-race, 12 drivers were summoned to the stewards and given warnings for their “inconsistent application of throttle and brake, from the final corner along the pit straight”. But when you punish more than half of the grid, surely the rules have to be looked at too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u900k-obTRs

In the immediate aftermath, Hamilton blamed the incident on the safety car turning its lights off too late. Apparently this is a concern that Mercedes had raised about the restart procedure before the race, given Mugello’s layout, but Bottas claims that “they said basically they’re going to keep doing it because it’s better for the show, I think that was the reply”.

Bottas may well have controlled the pack similarly anyway – it was an approach taken by drivers in the junior formulae – but the fact that the safety car only turned its lights off as it entered the final corner clearly left him with no alternative. Once that was the case, the concertina effect was always likely given the lack of visibility and the astonishing closing speeds in these cars.

The onboard footage from Giovinazzi and Sainz was disturbingly reminiscent of horrific accidents in the past, such as the one that sadly cost Billy Monger his legs, and we were lucky that seemingly the only injury was a bruised hand for the Spaniard. Clearly, none of the drivers are predominantly to blame – here is an excellent step-by-step breakdown of exactly what happened – and, whilst Michael Masi claims that “safety is paramount”, the fact that he refuses even to review the restart procedures has a stench of arrogance.

This absolutely needs to be addressed by the FIA and the GDPA. Whether it be a case of returning to the safety car lights going out earlier or even a mandatory VSC period immediately after the safety car comes in, there must be a better solution than the one we saw at Mugello.

The Tuscan Grand Prix in 90 Seconds (It Needs the Extra 30)

Answering the Burning Questions

How do you follow the last grand prix?! Well, like that, actually.

Will the drivers manage any overtaking around the Mugello track? Quite a bit, yes. The headwind helped make the DRS zone very effective.

Can Mercedes bounce back from their messy weekend? Of course they can.

Can Ferrari produce anything worthy of the occasion on their 1000th race? Of course they can’t.

2020 Italian GP report | Gasly wins bonkers race at Monza

Posted on by James Mackenzie
I mean…what just happened?!
Pierre Gasly wins the Italian Grand Prix.
Image credit: XPB Images

And just when everybody was calling F1 boring… Pierre Gasly took his maiden victory in a crazy 2020 Italian Grand Prix, being joined on the podium by Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll.

Things had started in a regular manner with a Mercedes 1-2 in qualifying; although, Max Verstappen dropped from his obligatory third to fifth on the grid, as the Red Bull’s struggled around the high-speed circuit. Valtteri Bottas’s reactions to the lights going out were slow and he was jumped by Carlos Sainz on the run to the first corner, but that was not to be the end of his troubles. Lando Norris – who had put a recent run of poor opening laps behind him and climbed from sixth to fourth at the start – passed the Mercedes around the outside of the second chicane and, after Bottas ran wide at the second Lesmo, he was also passed by Sergio Pérez and Daniel Ricciardo on the run to the Ascari chicane.

Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, was sailing away at the front. Without the ability to use a conservative engine mode, the true pace of the Mercedes was revealed and Hamilton, despite taking it pretty easy, had built a 14-second gap by lap 20. But that’s when the normality stopped.

Kevin Magnussen’s Haas broke down at the pit lane entrance and, after a lap of yellow flags, triggered a safety car. Mercedes brought Hamilton in to pit under the safety car, as is often standard procedure to gain a cheap pit stop, but crucially they had missed that the pit lane entry had been closed. The world champion was somewhat a victim of his own success, as the rest of the field had those extra 14 or so seconds to prepare and only the Alfa Romeo team made the bizarre decision to bring in Antonio Giovinazzi.

Mercedes were immediately aware of their mistake and Hamilton may have had some time to build a gap to the field, but just one lap after the safety car had ended, Charles Leclerc suffered a massive crash as he lost the car halfway through the 150 mph Parabolica.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0WzAatudAo

That led to a red flag whilst the barriers were repaired and meant that Hamilton’s ten-second stop-go penalty was confirmed during the race suspension. We then experienced the novelty of a post-red-flag standing start, with the top 10 on the second grid being Hamilton, Stroll, Gasly, the Alfa Romeos, the McLarens, Bottas, Nicholas Latifi and Daniel Ricciardo.

Stroll got away poorly and Gasly found himself in the lead once Hamilton had served his penalty; Mercedes elected to take it immediately as the rules state it must be served within three laps and another safety car would have left them in even bigger trouble. Hamilton rejoined 20 seconds behind the pack with only 24 laps remaining.

Kimi Räikkönen was briefly in second but, on soft tyres in an underperforming Ala Romeo, quickly began to fall back down the order. In the four laps it took Sainz to pass the Finn, Gasly had opened up a four-second gap. The Spaniard would then go about closing that down in the remaining laps and eventually got to within the one-second DRS window on the final lap.

Gasly withstood intense pressure and didn’t put a foot wrong, successfully holding off the faster McLaren and taking an incredible victory for AlphaTauri, at the same track where a young Sebastian Vettel had taken the team’s only other victory 12 years ago, under their former guise of Toro Rosso.

Pierre Gasly at the Italian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

It was the first win for a French driver since Olivier Panis in 1996 and the entire paddock – perhaps aside from Esteban Ocon – seemed thrilled for the affable Frenchman. “Honestly, it’s unbelievable, I’m not sure I’m realising what’s happening right now, it was such a crazy race”, Gasly said. “I’ve been through so much in the space of 18 months, my first podium last year and now the win in Monza!”

Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll had understandably mixed emotions – initially at least – after the former’s near miss and the latter’s poor start throwing away his chance at the win. Norris produced an excellent defensive display, holding off Pérez in the first half of the race and then Bottas – the Finn struggling with overheating issues throughout – for a well-deserved fourth. Ricciardo finished sixth, equally unable to pass the Mercedes, and Hamilton completed a stunning recovery to seventh place and took the fastest lap.

That meant, against all odds, that his championship lead actually remained the same – now 47 points from Bottas, rather than Verstappen. These are the days when Bottas absolutely has to be seizing his opportunity to close the gap to his illustrious teammate, but spending the race stuck behind first a Renault and then a McLaren, whilst Hamilton carves through the field to finish just two places behind him, is not a good look.

Time for a Change to the Rules?

This race weekend brought attention to a rarely-experienced set of circumstances.

Hamilton took responsibility for having missed the boards that stated the pit lane had closed but, in his defence, they are not ideally located. Two red crosses on the far left of a right-hander, which look pretty similar to the usual yellow/orange SC signal, is surely not obvious enough. As Hamilton pointed out to his team over the radio, he was looking right as that’s where the incident was and this post from Reddit shows the delayed reactions of all the teams.

Image credit: Formula 1

This is less a question of fairness than it is one of safety. The pit lane was closed to protect marshals who were about to wheel a car to the pits and yet more than one team didn’t notice that the pit entry was closed. Daniel Ricciardo missed the same warning signal in Brazil four years ago.

Surely a large screen could be positioned just before the pit lane entry, jutting out from above the catch fencing? Or more crucial information on the steering wheels, rather than just the light indicators for flags? More to the point, why do the FIA not have the ability to send out a radio message on all channels – to drivers and teams – for major safety messages? Other racing series utilise this.

In addition to this point, there was the fact that Stroll was then able to take his mandatory tyre change during the red flag – ironically, gaining a free pit stop à la Hamilton and Giovinazzi – the unfairness of which, Norris drew attention to. We also saw footage of Mercedes and Red Bull trying to convince the stewards that minor bodywork damage to Bottas and Alexander Albon was a safety risk and should be allowed to be changed. A red flag should be like pausing the race, simple as that.

And then there was the qualifying fiasco again – not as dramatic as last year’s but still dangerous in both P3 and Q1. It feels as though the FIA does not make changes until an accident forces them to address issues properly.

A Bad Day for Mercedes…But Worse Still for Red Bull and Ferrari

On one of the rare occasions where Mercedes have an off-day, Red Bull would have hoped to have been there to capitalise, but things never really got going for them at Monza.

Verstappen crashed during Practice One and, by the end of qualifying, it was apparent that they simply were not the second fastest car this weekend. The Dutchman also lost places on the opening lap and spent the first half of the race stuck behind Bottas, before retiring with an engine issue not long after the restart.

Albon had another weekend to forget. Whilst ‘only’ three tenths off Verstappen in qualifying, he went off at the first corner and then received a five-second penalty for a clumsy defensive manoeuvre on Romain Grosjean, which resulted in his damaged floor. He never recovered and finished ahead of only Giovinazzi, after the Italian’s ten-second stop-go penalty.

All whilst the driver they demoted last year was winning the race in their B-team…

Ferrari, on the other hand, never expected to be in a position to challenge Mercedes, but would nonetheless manage to disappoint. Vettel got caught up in the Q1 mayhem and qualified 17th, with Leclerc only managing 13th on outright pace – the first time since 1984 that neither Ferrari qualified in the top 10 at Monza.

Things would get worse on race day, however. A brake failure for Vettel thankfully happened at a safe point of the circuit but, obviously, produced a retirement on lap 6 and then there was Leclerc’s crash at the halfway point. At least the Tifosi weren’t there to witness it all.

The next race is Ferrari’s 1000th and the first ever at their home track in Mugello. They will be desperate to produce something remotely worthy of the occasion.

Farewell to the Williams Family

A Williams engineer thanks Claire and Frank Williams at the Italian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Formula 1

Finally, a quick word for the Williams team, who were recently bought out by US investment company Dorilton Capital. Claire and Frank Williams announced that the Italian Grand Prix would be their final race in charge of the team, as they stepped aside to allow the new owners to run it.

Tributes were ubiquitous and the affection in which the Williams family are held was clear to be seen throughout the paddock. Their driver George Russell delivered a touching message upon finishing the race, thanking them for giving him his chance in the sport, which was something echoed by many drivers – both current and former – from Bottas to David Coulthard.

It is the end of an era, as the final family-owned team in Formula 1 changes hands, but hopefully the name will remain and the team can continue their recovery up the grid.

The Italian Grand Prix in 90 Seconds (It Needs the Extra 30…)

Answering the Burning Questions

What effect will the new ban on engine ‘party modes’ have over the weekend? It didn’t seem to affect Mercedes in qualifying and may, in fact, have hurt Red Bull who had been pushing for the change. It’s hard to tell on the Monza track, though, so watch this space at Mugello.

Will it bring Mercedes back towards the field as planned? Nope, but other things did.

How badly are things going to go for Ferrari at their home race?.. Pretty badly…

Can Daniel Ricciardo challenge for a podium? Bizarrely, no…considering it consisted of an AlphaTauri, a McLaren and a Racing Point.

2020 Belgian GP report | Hamilton dominates at Spa

Posted on by James Mackenzie
The rain never came, but it was plain sailing for Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton wins the Belgian Grand Prix.
Image credit: AFP

Lewis Hamilton took a comfortable victory at the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix to further extend his lead in the championship, with Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen completing the usual HAM-BOT-VER podium.

It was a fairly sedate race at the front. Hamilton had more than enough to cover anything his teammate threw at him – which was thoroughly demonstrated on Saturday with two stellar qualifying laps, more than half a second faster than Bottas – and Max Verstappen unable to challenge the mighty Mercedes on this occasion.

An early crash by Antonio Giovinazzi, that also collected the helpless George Russell, brought out the safety car on lap 10 and all the front-runners, bar Sergio Pérez and Pierre Gasly, took the opportunity for a cheap pit stop and ran to the end on a set of hard tyres. Whilst things started to get a little uncomfortable towards the end, and Hamilton’s mind clearly flashed back to that puncture in Silverstone, there were to be no late dramas this time and the Briton took his 89th victory – now just two short of Michael Schumacher’s all-time record – again being denied a ‘grand chelem’ only by a fastest lap on the final lap.

He dedicated the win to Chadwick Boseman, best known for his starring role as Black Panther, who sadly passed away over the weekend at the age of just 43. “It’s been an emotional weekend, I want to dedicate this win to Chad and his family, he was such an inspiration and his legacy will live on.”

Renault Find Their Form

The aforementioned fastest lap was set by Daniel Ricciardo as he closed in on an unlikely podium, finishing just three seconds behind Verstappen in the end.

Daniel Ricciardo at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Image credit: XPB

Renault have been steadily improving as this quick-fire season has progressed, but this year’s black-and-yellow machine really came into its own with a low downforce setup at Spa. They were near the top of the timings all weekend; Ricciardo second in Practice Two and teammate Esteban Ocon in the same position in Practice Three.

Come race day, the Renaults fell back from the top three somewhat but, it would become apparent, were far kinder to their tyres and, with a few more laps, the Honey Badger may well have been designing a tattoo for Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul…

The 44 laps of the Belgian circuit were enough for Ocon, though, who held off the late charge of Lando Norris and successfully passed the Red Bull of Alexander Albon on the final lap for fifth place. 23 points for fourth, fifth and the fastest lap, is Renault’s best points haul at a single race ever. And things bode well for next week’s trip to Monza, where an even lower downforce setup could well see Abiteboul sweating once more.

An Emotional Weekend, Especially for Gasly

A minute’s silence was held before the race in memory of Anthoine Hubert, the F2 driver who was tragically killed at last year’s Belgian Grand Prix. Many of the young, French drivers grew up with Hubert but Gasly, in particular, considered the young Renault protégé one of his very best friends.

So, it was excellent to see the AlphaTauri driver continue his good form this weekend and come home with some more points in eighth place. He made up a number of positions in the opening laps, despite starting on the hard tyre, and showed incredible bravery as he passed Pérez into Raidillon, the Mexican squeezing him to a dangerous degree.

The safety car fell unkindly for Gasly and his counterstrategy, but he fought back through the field excellently, after switching to the medium compound on lap 26, and felt he had done enough to make his former roommate proud come the chequered flag. The fans voted him the Driver of the Day.

More Pain for Ferrari…And It May Get Even Worse

Ferrari did not expect much coming into this weekend, but they may well have managed to underdeliver, nonetheless. The deficiencies of the SF1000 were brutally exposed and its lack of straight-line speed was particularly evident in the first and third sectors of the lap in Belgium.

There were fears that Ferrari would struggle to progress through Q1, after Practice Three left Charles Leclerc in 17th and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel plumb last. They did narrowly avoid that particular embarrassment, but 13th and 14th on the grid was a long way from locking out the front row before a maiden victory for Leclerc at the same circuit last year.

My personal suspicion is that the team overly focussed on an especially downforce-heavy car for this season due to their superiority on the straights in 2019. But, once the engine rules had been clarified and severely hampered them, it was too late to dramatically change the philosophy of the 2020 design.

Whatever the reason for their shortcomings, it is probably a good thing that there will be no Tifosi at next weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, as it will likely be the lowest downforce setup of the year and their problems will only multiply.

Nil points at Spa is humiliating, but nil points at Monza…

There is certainly a big hill to climb for those in red.

Image credit: Foto Colombo Images

The Belgian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Can anyone (well, Max Verstappen) challenge the Mercedes? They haven’t won here since 2017… Nope, they have now not won here since 2020…

Will a better result in Spain help motivate Sebastian Vettel? It must have been hard to find any motivation in this Ferrari at this track.

Or will Ferrari just struggle terribly around the power-sensitive Spa track? Yes.

Will the pressure increase further on Alexander Albon? It was another okay race and Helmut Marko has come out and backed him. For now, at least.

Could we have a wet and wild Spa weekend? *sigh* No.

2020 Spanish GP report | Hamilton stays cool in the Spanish heat

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Another win, another record.
Lewis Hamilton wins the Spanish Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton took a dominant victory at the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix and moved one clear of Michael Schumacher to claim the outright record for the most podiums in F1 history with his 156th visit.

There were hopes in the paddock of another closely fought race, after last week’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix exposed a potential Achilles’ heel for the champions as they struggled with their rear tyres and Max Verstappen snatched an unlikely win. But those hopes were quickly extinguished when Hamilton “pulled the pin”, as Martin Brundle put it, and built a gap of almost ten seconds to the Red Bull in preparation for his first pit stop.

The usual Mercedes 1-2 in qualifying had been broken up by a poor start from Valtteri Bottas, the Finn suffering from a lack of a slipstream on the long run to the first corner and being passed by Verstappen and the opportunistic Lance Stroll. The Finn recovered to third quickly enough but spent the rest of the grand prix failing to get close enough to Verstappen in order to mount a real attack. Even on soft tyres towards the end of the race, he just didn’t seem to have the requisite pace and crossed the line 44 seconds behind his teammate, after making a late stop to claim the fastest lap.

It was a chastening weekend for Bottas, who is seeing his title aspirations crumble once again. “I have no idea what the points difference is,” he said, “but it is way too big and I can see again the championship drifting away. I will always bounce back, but right now I want to be somewhere else other than this.”

During the latest triple-header, the championship has transformed from a two-horse to a three-horse race and he is looking increasingly like the third horse.

Image credit: Mercedes

Hamilton, meanwhile, was imperious throughout – only denied his seventh career ‘grand chelem’ by his teammate’s late dash for the fastest lap and so “in the zone” that he didn’t realise he had passed the chequered flag.

Behind the front three, the Racing Points were ‘best of the rest’. Stroll continues to defy his critics and is really starting to cement his position as more than just a ‘rich boy driving for his dad’s team’; the Canadian took fourth ahead of teammate Sergio Pérez after the Mexican received a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags.

Carlos Sainz completed the top six with a strong drive at his home grand prix, seemingly having solved the overheating issues that have plagued his McLaren recently.

A Little Redemption in Red

Sebastian Vettel made the best of another bizarre Ferrari strategy to salvage seventh, impressively making a set of soft tyres last 36 laps and holding off a train of faster cars towards the end.

The incompetency of the Ferrari strategists has become a running joke at this point and they continued to add fuel to the fire here. A bizarre radio exchange played out for the world to hear as Vettel was ignored, then told to push, then told to go to the end, and finally had to tell his team the sums they needed to do for him.

Image credit: Reuters

The tension between the four-time world champion and his team is palpable and it feels as though both parties are just waiting for the season to be over.

Ferrari may also find themselves in hot water as it has now transpired that Charles Leclerc drove for two laps without his safety harnesses secured after his engine had cut out and spun him at the final chicane on lap 36. A massive lapse in common sense and safety that the FIA may feel the need to make an example of.

Pressure Continues to Increase on Albon

In the break before racing at Spa-Francorchamps last season, despite all the team’s previous reassurances, Pierre Gasly was replaced at Red Bull by Alexander Albon. But, as we head to this year’s Belgian Grand Prix, the team find Albon arguably underperforming as badly as the Frenchman was 12 months ago.

Red Bull are desperate for their second car to get, at least, reasonably close to Verstappen’s pace to aid their strategy options when attempting to outsmart Mercedes. Albon has certainly showed promise at times, but there is surely only so long people can continue to make excuses for him.

The London-born Thai driver is averaging a deficit of over half a second to his teammate in qualifying and, whilst he has often produced great recovery drives on a Sunday, that is still only getting him back into a position that would be the least expected of him.

Alexander Albon at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

This weekend, he did improve his qualifying slightly – if only to sixth on the grid – but was hampered in the race as Red Bull possibly used him as a guinea pig to test out the hard tyre for his teammate out front. That put him back into the many ‘DRS trains’ forming through the midfield and he only managed fight back to eighth place.

The fact is, however, that if he had shown the pace to get past the Racing Points into fourth earlier in the race, Red Bull would likely not have taken the gamble to switch to the hard tyres.

It was apparently Gasly being lapped by Verstappen in Hungary last year that was the final straw for the Red Bull bosses, so one wonders what must have been going through Albon’s head as he moved aside for his teammate here in Spain.

The Spanish Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Will Mercedes experience issues with their tyres again? Nope.

And can Red Bull then challenge for another win? Also nope.

Will Sebastian Vettel leave his Silverstone troubles behind him? To some extent, yes. A rightful driver of the day.

How will Sergio Pérez deal with the strain of driving an F1 car post-virus? He coped fine, seemingly. Even with it being one of the hottest races in years.

Will anyone pull a Maldonado? Again, nope.

2020 70th Anniversary GP report | Verstappen ends the Mercedes dominance

Posted on by James Mackenzie
What a difference a week can make.
Max Verstappen wins the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Image credit: Motorsport Images

Max Verstappen produced a fantastic drive to take an unexpected win at Silverstone’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

The Mercedes cars had been dominating the weekend in what has become their customary manner this year, with a comfortable margin of almost a second to the rest of the field during qualifying. But that dominant qualifying session would actually prove to be quite costly.

Red Bull put Verstappen out on the hard tyres in Q2 and he succeeded in progressing with that tyre, meaning that he would start the race on it, whilst Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton had to start on the softer medium tyres. Those tyres rapidly started to degrade and Verstappen was all over the back of the Mercedes by the time they pitted on laps 13 and 14 respectively.

Around 10 laps later, Verstappen was still circulating happily on the hard tyres he had started the race on – in addition to having completed a qualifying lap – and the Silver Arrows were already struggling with blistering on their new, hard tyres. Verstappen wrote off any chance of challenging for the win when speaking to the media on Saturday, but Red Bull suddenly realised they had a genuine chance here.

A slow pit stop saw the Dutchman rejoin narrowly behind Bottas, but he was able to make short work of passing him on the fresher tyres and opened out a small gap. The pair would pit together on lap 32, both fitting the hard tyres and Bottas’s chances of a win looked all but over. Mercedes chose to gamble with their other car, initally considering trying to run Hamilton to the end, but – likely cautious considering last weekend’s tyre blowouts – eventually settled on a long middle stint and a charge to the flag with 11 laps on a fresh set of the hard tyres.

Image credit: Mercedes

The world champion did a good job of preserving the tyres and, once he was on the new set, hunted down and passed Charles Leclerc and Bottas fairly easily. Verstappen was long gone, however, and took the chequered flag for his ninth F1 victory, along with second in the drivers’ standings.

Bottas was visibly frustrated at having ended up behind his teammate, after an excellent pole position the day beforehand, and accused his team of “sleeping”. He will have to come back stronger once again in Spain next weekend, where further high temperatures and punishing corners could see Red Bull in contention once again.

Behind the top three, Leclerc came home an impressive fourth and Alexander Albon produced a much-needed performance, full of excellent overtaking manoeuvres, to finish fifth. The Racing Points followed them in sixth and seventh – Nico Hülkenberg impressing again during his substitute appearances – with Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris and Daniil Kvyat filling the remaining points-paying positions.

Politics on the Track

Leclerc continues to drag this year’s Ferrari into positions it probably has no right to be. In Austria and Hungary, he took unlikely, opportunistic podiums and, today, made a risky one-stop strategy work – against the recommendations of his strategy team – to move up from eighth on the grid to fourth at the finish line.

This is reinforcing the impression he gave last year that he is a true star of the future, but he will need Ferrari to make some significant improvements to the way in which they operate if he is to challenge for titles any time soon.

On the other side of the garage, a messy divorce is playing out in front of the eyes of the world.

Sebastian Vettel spins at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel picked up where he left off last weekend, struggling to extract any performance from the underpowered SF1000. The low-downforce setup which the team decided to pursue at Silverstone doesn’t appear to suit his driving style and he qualified a lowly 12th. On Sunday, he spun at the first corner.

There was still a strong chance of a recovery drive, though, with the possibility of counter-strategies such as the one-stop used successfully by Leclerc. But Ferrari were stubborn and forced him to pit – seemingly to move him out the way of his teammate – which left him in traffic. The rarely outspoken German came over the radio to say, “I’ll hang in there, but you know that you’ve messed up”.

Matters were made worse when he was bizarrely pitted after just 10 laps on the hard, in order to take a set of used mediums for the remaining 19 laps. Conspiracy theories of Ferrari purposely hindering Vettel are abound and this was not helped by Team Principal Mattia Binotto pinning the blame squarely on his driver. Vettel himself looks done with the team and pointedly remained completely silent over the radio after the race had ended.

And Politics off the Track

Friday morning saw the result of Renault’s protest against the Racing Point brake ducts. The ‘Pink Mercedes’ were docked 15 points and fined 400,000 euros for what the stewards described as “using tracing paper to copy a shape/drawing” when it came to their design process.

The matter is complicated by the fact that Racing Point were legally supplied with Mercedes’ 2019 brake ducts last year, before they became a listed part, and can’t really be expected to forget the designs that they have seen. What apparently swung the stewards’ decision was the fact that Racing Point did not use the designs of the rear brake ducts last year as they did not fit with their former high-rake philosophy, but they are now using them after changing to the Mercedes philosophy for this year’s car.

Image credit: Getty Images

Either way, nobody is happy with the result.

Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Williams and Racing Point themselves have all lodged the intention to appeal and Lawrence Stroll issued a strong statement, defending the team and accusing others of “poor sportsmanship”.

Binotto said, “at school there are those who pass and those who copy their homework”, and that they would be seeking clarity over the situation. Frankly, that is pretty rich coming from a team who came to a highly controversial ‘undisclosed agreement’ with the FIA regarding their almost certainly illegal use of engines last season. If Racing Point were ‘copying homework’, then Ferrari just plain cheated on the test.

The 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

With softer tyres and higher temperatures, will there be further tyre dramas? Not as much visible drama as last week, but it certainly changed the complexion of the race.

Can Alexander Albon have a clean weekend? Qualifying still wasn’t the best but overall, yes.

Will Sebastian Vettel find some pace after struggling in the midfield last weekend? Not really.

Can Valtteri Bottas put a dent in what is now an ominous gap to his teammate in the standings? Nope.

Surely The Hulk can catch a break and at least get to race this time?! He can! Still no podium, though, obviously.

2020 British GP report | Hamilton takes home victory despite last-lap puncture

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Who needs four tyres anyway?
Image credit: Getty Images

What had been a fairly processional race suddenly exploded into life – literally, in the case of three drivers’ Pirelli tyres – with a couple of laps remaining at the 2020 British Grand Prix.

The Mercedes pair had led comfortably throughout, despite a couple of early safety cars after crashes for Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat, but had been pushing each other quite hard on tyres that had done nearly 40 laps. Then Valtteri Bottas suddenly started to fall back and, just as he started lap 50 of 52, his front-left tyre decided it was done for the day.

With an entire lap to do, the Finn fell back down the order and Red Bull decided to pit Max Verstappen – who had been running a lonely race in third place – in an attempt to take the fastest lap. The drama was far from over, however, as Carlos Sainz’s front-left followed suit from fourth place and then – with a little over half a lap remaining – so did race leader Lewis Hamilton’s.

The 30-second gap back to Verstappen was reducing rapidly and it looked briefly as though Hamilton was about to have the win snatched away from him in the most excruciating manner. The world champion managed the situation perfectly, though, and scraped over the line with about five seconds to spare. Neither Bottas nor Sainz would manage to recover into the top ten after pitting, which has a huge impact on the championship standings – Hamilton now has an ominous 30-point lead over his teammate.

Some have questioned Red Bull’s decision to pit Verstappen, arguing that he would have won otherwise, but hindsight is 20/20 and all the tyres were on a knife-edge by the end, so there’s nothing to say the same would not have happened to the Dutchman.

Charles Leclerc profited from the drama to secure an unlikely second podium of the season in the uncompetitive Ferrari. It was an excellent performance, made all the clearer as his four-time world champion teammate, Sebastian Vettel, struggled throughout and eventually managed a single point for 10th.

Pirelli are conducting investigations into the failures – Kvyat’s earlier retirement was eventually proven to be a tyre failure also – ahead of another grand prix at the punishing Silverstone track next week, where temperatures are due to be higher and the tyres were planned to be a step softer.

More Midfield Action

The midfield battle at the British Grand Prix.
Image credit: Motorsport Images

Whilst it was pretty serene out front for the most part, there was plenty of action, once again, in the midfield. The McLarens of Sainz and Lando Norris – sporting a simply excellent special helmet design, produced by six-year-old competition-winner Eva – swapped positions repeatedly with Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and the Racing Point of Lance Stroll. Even Romain Grosjean in the Haas was involved after not pitting during the safety car period and jumping from 14th to 5th. The struggles of the American team continue, but Grosjean was able to hold on to the pack surprisingly well for a good 15 laps. He did, however, produce some controversy with his defensive manoeuvres during that period.

Late jolts to one side at the end of the straight were reminiscent of those performed by Verstappen in his early days – which briefly brought about the ‘Verstappen rule’ banning them – and resulted in complaints over the radio by Sainz and Ricciardo. He received a black-and-white flag as a driving-standards warning but no penalty.

As the chairman of the GPDA, Grosjean should be setting an example. Mark Webber was cutting in his criticism, saying that the Haas driver has a “gross misunderstanding of modern grand prix racing” and is “borderline out of his depth in this category”. Ricciardo said that this “on-the-edge” driving would be raised during the drivers’ briefing ahead of the next race. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room…

Pressure Continues to Mount on Albon

It was another troubling weekend for Alexander Albon. A fairly big crash during Practice 2 on Friday set the tone as Albon struggled again to get to grips with this year’s very sensitive car and he then missed much of the final practice session with a battery problem. Qualifying went no better as he failed to progress from Q2; an attempt to get through on the medium tyres proved too ambitious and he failed to improve on the soft tyre, leaving him 12th on the grid.

Alexander Albon at the British Grand Prix.
Image credit: LAT Images

Magnussen made an excellent start and was ahead of the Red Bull by the end of the first lap. He made an error into the final chicane, though, and was compromised on the exit, presenting a tempting opportunity to Albon. The Anglo-Thai got himself somewhat alongside the Haas but – realising the gap was closing – tried to back out of the move, left it too late, and pitched Magnussen off into the barriers.

That earned him a five-second penalty and made his job harder still. As has often been the case, he did then produce a decent recovery drive and – once all the late tyre dramas had played out – found himself at least with four points for eighth place.

Tongues are beginning to wag, though, as he gets no closer to Verstappen’s level of performance and continues to make costly errors. Meanwhile, Pierre Gasly – the man he replaced last year – is excelling back in the AlphaTauri and managed to finish ahead of Albon here, with a commendable run to seventh.

The British Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Who will replace Sergio Pérez at Racing Point after his positive test?! Only Nico Hülkenberg!

If it is The Hulk, surely he won’t finally get his podium in the ultimate redemption arc?!?! …No…He didn’t even start the race. The man is cursed.

Can anyone challenge Mercedes? Only Pirelli seemingly.

With a very different layout to the first three grands prix, will any teams suddenly prosper at Silverstone? Renault appeared a bit stronger, but there were no major changes in the pecking order.

Will Alexander Albon have a better weekend with a new race engineer? …Also no… Hopefully he’s not as cursed as The Hulk has proven to be, but it’s starting to look a bit that way.

2020 Hungarian GP report | A record-equalling eighth victory in Hungary for Hamilton

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Hamilton is the hero again, but no more so than the Red Bull mechanics.
Lewis Hamilton leads the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Image credit: LAT Images

Lewis Hamilton took a commanding victory at the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix, winning in Budapest for the eighth time and, in doing so, matched Michael Schumacher‘s long-standing record for the most wins at one grand prix.

It is looking like the first of potentially a few Schumacher records to fall this year, considering the dominance of Mercedes and Hamilton now being just two podiums and five race wins behind the legendary German’s tallies.

The 86th victory of Hamilton’s career began in tricky conditions, with the track soaking wet from rain earlier in the day but drying out as the sun poked through the clouds and leaving the decision of which tyres to start on as a tight judgement call.

Max Verstappen – generally considered one of the very best in the rain – showed just how precarious the conditions were as he crashed on the way to the grid. Thus ensued a mad rush by the Red Bull mechanics to fix his broken front left push-rod in the remaining 15 or so minutes; they completed the work with 25 seconds to spare.

Image credit: Formula 1

The Dutchman demonstrated his gratitude, firstly over the radio and then on the track, with a stellar performance to take second place, having started seventh, and narrowly holding off the charging Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas in the final laps.

Bottas had got away poorly – he was fortunate not to receive a penalty for jumping the start after initially reacting to lights going out on his dashboard – and dropped back down the order on the run to the first corner. This is not the Bottas 3.0 that fans thought they had seen at the opening grand prix. He has now lost the championship lead to his illustrious teammate and will have to conjure up some renewed fire in his belly if he is to wrestle that lead back as we head for back-to-back races at Silverstone, where Hamilton has won five of the last six events.

And the world champion is showing some great form currently. He used all his wet-weather expertise to open up an eight second lead in the first couple of laps and, by the end, had a significant enough gap to Verstappen that he was able to comfortably pit for soft tyres and secure the extra point for the fastest lap. All in all, another masterclass to add to the collection.

Further back, Alexander Albon made a strong recovery after a disappointing qualifying to finish fifth, just ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Both drivers needed a good result and will surely have got some critics off their respective backs, for a while at least.

Neither came close to challenging Lance Stroll in the Racing Point, however, who coasted to a comfortable fourth position – the second-best result of his career. The ‘Pink Mercedes’ was undoubtedly the second-best car during qualifying and, whilst they faded a little in the race, were impressive enough to raise hackles a little more in the paddock. Renault have now lodged a second protest against the Racing Point car, before even having heard the result of their first one.

Lance Stroll at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Image credit: XPB Images

An inspired call at Haas to pit at the end of the formation lap for dry tyres led to the struggling team running third and fourth in the early stages. They predictably fell down the order, but Kevin Magnussen hung on commendably to finish ninth on the road. They would later receive a penalty for breaching regulations regarding driver aids by instructing the pair to pit on the formation lap, but Magnussen still earned a single point -their first of the season – for 10th, at least.

Meanwhile, Red Bull survived without a penalty despite having clearly been caught drying the track on Albon’s grid spot…

Yet More Stewarding Inconsistency

It is so very hard to predict which way a stewarding decision is going to fall currently; it’s as if they are making it up as they go along. But then I suppose that is not a huge surprise when you have a panel that changes from race to race.

Last week saw the bewildering decision not to penalise Stroll for his attempt to pass Daniel Ricciardo late on in the Styrian Grand Prix. He clearly forced Ricciardo off the track – left the track himself for good measure – and then kept the position. It seemed a ‘slam dunk’ penalty to most of the paddock, thanks to the trifecta of forcing another car off the track, violating track limits and completing an overtake off the track all in one move. As well as, arguably, rejoining in an unsafe manner as he blocked Lando Norris upon his return.

The stewards, however, saw things differently. As is often the case, there was not much of an explanation as to their decision, which deemed it a “racing incident where neither driver was wholly to blame”. Ricciardo said he thought it was “crystal clear” that it should have resulted in a penalty and, considering all he did was avoid a collision, it is difficult to see how the stewards apportioned any blame upon him.

Image credit: LAT Images

This is the crux of the problem; the fans – and even the drivers – are often left bemused by the decisions and no one is there to justify them. I have called for it before, but what we really need is a consistent panel of respected figures who are fully accountable for their decisions and explain exactly how and why they have come to them.

A Crash Back Down to Earth for Lando

After two extraordinary races to open the season for Lando Norris, Sunday saw things go far less smoothly for the 20-year-old. After what he described as “the worst start I’ve ever got in my life”, he fell to the back of the field and, from there, never really recovered.

The Hungaroring is notoriously hard to pass on and the McLaren driver could only recover to finish 13th in the end. Still, with two stellar performances out of three so far, things could be going far worse and I’m sure, if you had offered him fourth in the championship standings at this point before the season started, he would have bitten your hand off.

And if you thought he couldn’t get any more likeable as a personality, he was captured helping his mechanics disassemble the car on Sunday evening.

The Hungarian Grand Prix in 60(ish) Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Can Ferrari make some progress this weekend (and maybe not immediately crash into one another)? It wasn’t all plain sailing but certainly an improvement on the previous two races.

Will Lewis Hamilton match Michael Schumacher’s record for the number of wins at one GP with an 8th triumph in Hungary? Yep.

How will Racing Point respond to the protest about their car? By being ever more in-your-face with their speed, if anything.

Will the interview requested by Sebastian Vettel (with Martin Brundle) prove to be a major announcement? No, but it’s a thoroughly entertaining watch.

With more thunderstorms forecast, could it be another wet and wild weekend? It threatened to pour throughout the weekend, but we only ever got hints of rain when it really counted.

2020 Styrian GP report | Hamilton returns to form

Posted on by James Mackenzie
A wet weather masterclass from Hamilton on Saturday. (And Sunday wasn’t bad either.)
Lewis Hamilton wins the Styrian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

After last week’s chaos, normal service was resumed at the second event around the Spielberg track, in the shape of a Lewis Hamilton domination, a Mercedes 1-2, an impressive Max Verstappen podium and a Ferrari calamity at the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix.

His troubles at the last race led to Hamilton being asked some fairly ridiculous questions as to whether he should focus more on racing than activism. He answered them in emphatic style with one of his very best pole positions – there are 89 of them, remember – and a controlled victory on Sunday. He then doubled down on that response with a black power salute on the podium.

Saturday’s qualifying took place in the wettest conditions for some time and gave the drivers the platform to demonstrate every ounce of their skill and remind any doubters that they are the very best in the world. Hamilton and Verstappen stood out throughout the session, seemingly on another plane to the others. The world champion was not content with that, though, and moved onto another plane again, with a final lap that was 1.2 seconds faster than Verstappen in second; the gap between first and second was larger than the one between second and 10th. Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff described the lap as “out of this world” and former driver Mark Webber tweeted “there’s a F1 category and there’s then a F1-plus category. Lewis is/was in a different league”.

There were also starring performances from Carlos Sainz in third, Esteban Ocon in fifth and George Russell, who dragged his Williams out of Q1 for the first time and came within a tenth of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari for a place in Q3, eventually lining up 11th on the grid.

Sunday was less eventful for the most part but still an entertaining race. Hamilton led from the front whilst teammate Valtteri Bottas steadily worked his way back up to second, eventually passing Verstappen after an excellent duel in the final few laps. There was plenty of midfield action, with Sergio Pérez recovering from 17th on the grid to even challenge Albon for 4th at the end.

A dramatic last lap at the Styrian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Formula 1

In the process, however, he damaged his front wing and fell back into the clutches of Lando Norris, Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo at the final corner, resulting in a three-way photo finish. It was another storming finish from Norris who, after claiming a last-gasp podium seven days earlier, moved up from ninth to fifth in the dying stages after a long first stint. He remains third in the championship and is really coming into his own in his second season of F1.

Further back, things were going from bad to worse to whatever-is-below-that for the Scuderia.

A Horse Far From Prancing

Ferrari rushed through updates, that had originally been intended for the Hungarian Grand Prix next week, in order to have a direct comparison to the previous weekend’s race on the same track. The drivers reported an improvement during Friday’s practice sessions, but the times didn’t appear noticeably better and, whilst the soaking qualifying conditions will have complicated matters, 10th and 14th on the grid was worse than they had managed the week prior.

But still, they had the race on Sunday to try and make up ground and – at the very least – amass some useful data in their recovery efforts…right?

Wrong.

Image credit: Formula 1

A clumsy, overambitious move from Charles Leclerc left him bumping over the kerbs and landing on his teammate, Sebastian Vettel. The German returned to the pits with his rear wing hanging off and retired immediately; Leclerc went back out but only managed a further three laps before the damage – mostly to the floor of the car – was pronounced terminal.

Leclerc was, at least, refreshingly contrite when it came to his culpability for the incident, on what was a far-from-smooth weekend for the Monegasque all round. It began with the news that he had returned home to Monaco for the birthday party of his girlfriend’s sister and not adhered to social distancing whilst there. He may have had two tests before returning to the track but risking everything when the sport has put so much effort into its return, was immature and arrogant. He was very lucky to escape with just a warning.

And yet, that is the least of his worries, considering the position his team is now in. The Italian press have been predictably cutting (whilst romantic, of course) in their appraisal of the effective national team’s current predicament. They must hope that the remaining haul of updates, to be delivered in Budapest, will make a significant difference, or this season looks set to become the biggest embarrassment in their recent history.

The ‘Pink Mercedes’ Under the Microscope

Racing Point are yet to fully delivered on their considerable potential this season, thanks to a retirement at the first race and a scrappy qualifying at the second, but it has become increasingly apparent to the paddock that the pink cars are just as quick as they had feared.

This was demonstrated by Pérez’s charge through the field and then cemented by the fact that he was effectively being held up by the second Red Bull towards the end. As Stroll boisterously pointed out, they have “debatably the second fastest F1 car”.

So, Renault – clearly waiting to enact vengeance after Racing Point protested the French team’s best result in Japan last year – have decided to pull the trigger and lodged a protest over the eligibility of the Racing Point brake ducts.

Image credit: LAT Images

The paddock’s suspicions over the similarities between this year’s Racing Point and last year’s championship-winning Mercedes are well-known. The Silverstone-based team have been steadfast in their assertion that they simply copied the best car of last year and did so within the rules.

The stewards have classed the protest as admissible and impounded the brake ducts, whilst also requesting that Mercedes provide parts from last year’s car, but Racing Point remain resolute and say they “expect the FIA to dismiss the misconceived protest”. This will likely trundle on for a fair while.

The Styrian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Will we see much difference in pace from anyone since the last race? Nothing particularly noticeable.

Can Ferrari bring some updates in time for this weekend? They did, but they didn’t get much use out of them.

Will there be fewer mechanical issues now that the cobwebs are gone? Yep, just one mechanical failure during the race.

Can Lewis Hamilton claw back some ground on his teammate? He can.

With thunderstorms forecast through the weekend, will we have a wet and wild qualifying and/or race? Not during the race, but the qualifying was emphatically wet and wild.

2020 Austrian GP report | Bottas wins madcap race with maiden podium for Norris

Posted on by James Mackenzie
F1 comes back with a bang. (Literally.)
Valtteri Bottas wins the Austrian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

It may have been an agonising 217 days since the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi but the much-delayed opening Austrian Grand Prix of the 2020 season managed to be worth the wait.

By the end of qualifying, the main stories were clear – the dominance of Mercedes and the struggles of Ferrari. Mercedes look pretty mean in their new, black livery and their speed is just as menacing; they appear to have a half second advantage over the rest of the field, which looks ominous for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, their former main rivals have seemingly slipped back into the midfield, with Sebastian Vettel knocked out in Q2 and his teammate only just surviving to ultimately manage seventh on the grid.

The drama on Sunday started early. Having originally avoided a penalty for not slowing under yellow flags during his final qualifying run, Hamilton was given a three-place grid penalty less than an hour before the race after Red Bull had questioned the stewards’ original decision.

It would not slow him down too much though. By lap 10, Hamilton was ready to inheret second place when Max Verstappen’s Red Bull decided it was done for the day. A massive disappointment for the Dutchman, who seemed to be in a strong position after Red Bull’s gamble in Q2 resulted in him starting on harder tyres than those around him.

He would prove to be far from the only retirement, though, with just 11 cars actually reaching the chequered flag.

Hamilton had closed up rapidly to his teammate after Verstappen’s retirement but a combination of safety cars and orders from the garage to take things easy – as engineers panicked about gearbox issues caused by the aggressive kerbs – meant he never managed to attempt an overtake.

After the third and final safety car, Mercedes found themselves in something of a predicament – they had not stopped for new tyres, whilst a string of cars behind them had done so. Immediately after the restart, Alexander Albon was all over the back of Hamilton and, within a few corners, we had a déjà vu of Brazil last year as they collided and Albon was left pointing in the wrong direction.

Hamilton received a five-second time penalty and would also be denied a spot on the podium as young Lando Norris – fresh from his best ever qualifying result – stormed through with the fastest lap of the race to finish 4.8 seconds behind the world champion and become the third youngest F1 podium finisher ever.

Lando Norris celebrates his maiden podium at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Image credit: LAT Images

Charles Leclerc took an unlikely 2nd considering Ferrari’s pace this weekend – thanks to some daring but clinical overtaking late on – and Carlos Sainz completed the top five. The Spaniard may currently be questioning his decision to switch to the Scuderia next year, with McLaren on an upward trajectory and Ferrari going in the opposite direction.

Bottas begins this season as he did last year’s, with a win, but can he keep it up this time and really take the fight to Hamilton? The 2020 season is already looking like it could be a two-horse race.

Leclerc Spares Ferrari’s Blushes

It was a chastening weekend for those in red, but Leclerc did, at least, manage to salvage something positive for them with an unlikely podium, albeit one which required a fair slice of luck.

Whilst all the noises coming out of Ferrari since pre-season testing have been clear in tempering expectations, nobody could have foreseen quite how far they have fallen; Leclerc’s qualifying time was a little under a second slower than his pole time at the same circuit last year.

Image credit: Foto Colombo Images

This has reminded people of the elephant in the room – namely, the private settlement reached between Ferrari and the FIA regarding their engine last year. It surely cannot be a coincidence that all three Ferrari-powered teams are suddenly struggling and that the factory team are no less than 0.7 seconds down on the straights alone… Whatever trick they were pulling last year, they are clearly no longer able to perform it and it has starkly exposed their 2020 car’s deficiencies; it has a severe amount of drag and, if you watch Sebastian Vettel’s onboard footage, is just a real handful.

Those wondering whether Vettel – with the knowledge that he will be out of the team come next year – would be out to prove a point and back to his best, had an early hint towards a potential answer as he clumsily ploughed into the back of Sainz early on. The four-time world champion is beginning to look disillusioned with the sport – can he find his mojo again with a new project or is this the end?

A Messy Weekend for the World Champion

It was not the ideal start to Hamilton’s quest for a record-equalling seventh world championship. The Briton dominated the practice sessions but was pipped by his teammate when it mattered in qualifying and would eventually be handed a penalty after Red Bull continued their tirade against Mercedes, having already lodged a protest against the Silver Arrows’ DAS system.

Once back up to second, he would endure a frustrating spell stuck behind his teammate, with those in the garage nervous of gearbox issues and desperate for their drivers to stop pushing, before his chances of taking the lead were further scuppered by numerous safety cars. Mercedes then made a mistake by not pitting for new tyres during the final safety car period, which led to the collision with Albon.

The Red Bull driver stormed around the outside of Hamilton at Turn 4, only for the pair to connect front and rear wheels on the exit. Hamilton took full responsibility for their uncannily similar accident at Interlagos last year, but this one was a little more complex.

Hamilton Albon Collision Onboard from formula1

There has been much debate as to whether the five-second penalty was deserved. Some – mostly in the Red Bull camp, obviously – have said that he got off lightly, whilst some have called it a racing incident. It was mostly just unfortunate.

Albon, in hindsight, perhaps should have been more patient – he had far better traction and would surely have been able to pass Hamilton in a less risky situation within a lap or so. Putting himself on the outside of a car on cold, worn, hard tyres at a downhill corner always had the potential to end in tears. Hamilton was something of a passenger as he understeered wide and then Albon’s overspeed effectively drove him into Hamilton’s front left tyre.

Equally, though, whilst he was slightly behind on corner entry, Albon was almost a car length ahead by the exit of the corner. Would a more-experienced driver have left just that extra few centimetres of room, knowing that the other car was likely to run wide? Maybe, but daring manoeuvres like this are why Albon is in the Red Bull; he will get there. Ultimately, it was the outcome that resulted in the penalty for Hamilton – if Albon had been bumped wide slightly and recovere to maybe 4th, there would likely have been no action taken. For a neutral driver’s perspective, check out Marcus Ericsson’s tweet.

Once Hamilton’s penalty was confirmed, Mercedes could potentially have swapped the drivers to help him cling on to a podium place, but that was not done either.

However you look at it, this is not how Hamilton would have envisaged his campaign starting and he already has a 13-point deficit to make up on a reduced calendar.

The Austrian Grand Prix in 60(ish) Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

How will the new socially-distanced F1 play out? Will it have a significant impact? Not particularly – it’s easy to forget that there is no crowd and the McLaren garage didn’t exactly observe social distancing whilst celebrating their podium.

Who has the fastest car? Mercedes, it would appear emphatically.

Will anyone have made any dramatic changes since pre-season testing? Not to the untrained eye as yet, but Ferrari may do by next weekend.

Can Max Verstappen and Red Bull continue their winning streak in Austria? Nope.

How will Sebastian Vettel approach his final season at Ferrari? About the same as the last two years so far, unfortunately.