Race 10 - British GP

So sprint race - yeah or nah?

I have seen this poll so many times on social media this week! For me, I didn't mind it. The logic being: sprint race > practice session 3. The only thing I would change probably is to change it to a time limit instead of distance and, more importantly, to award the pole (the award, not the grid place) to the winner of Friday qualifying.

As much as I groused about this format of qualifying before, I guess I have come to grow quite fond of it. It takes a slightly different set of skills (read: balls) to just go as fast as you can, not worry too much about tyres, fuel, engine modes, opposition - just let it all go and drive, drive, drive! Would be a shame to see it going unrewarded every week.

Friday qualifying was such a treat to watch, with the added element of a very full and very British crowd. The cheer for George as he came through to qualify into Q3 was simply phenomenal. I was cheering at home and I am not even British, so I cannot imagine what being actually in the crowd would have felt like. One day...

The brutal cheer for Max as he qualified P2 though - damn! Lewis pulled out a fantastic first lap in Q3 that ultimately got him the first place. That was quite beautiful, as was the largely unnoticed but almost equally impressive P4 lap by Leclerc. That boy, I have no idea where he pulls his stuff out from. Awesome!

The sprint race was a nice little mini race that I'm sure F1 purists would be trying to convince themselves to hate but it had too many pros and not enough cons for them to do so. Max Verstappen got ahead with flaming brakes right from the get go, with Lewis getting one of the poorest starts I've seen him do. Max of course kept ahead for the rest of the sprint and went on to take pole. Some lovely wheel to wheel action through the race from the likes of Alonso, Carlos and Daniel. The losers were Checo and Carlos, who spun during the race and there just wasn't enough time to recover back to their starting positions. Charles finished P4, taking advantage of that. George Russell of course had a tussle with Carlos but otherwise kept it clean and finished within the top 10, although he did pick up a grid penalty for the race to come.

So Sunday was the only unchanged schedule of the weekend, and the first half of the opening lap was probably more entertaining than most of the rest of the race. The two championship leaders got real elbows out all the way to copse corner where Lewis unfortunately picked an understeer and clipped Max at the exit who had equally unfortunately decided to turn in just about then. As so happens in such incidents (I don't know how! Everytime!) Lewis came out of the incident only with some front wing damage but Max was not as lucky and ended up full beans into the barriers at 51G - the incident initiating a dirty pissing contest for the last couple weeks on all of social media as well as actual media. 

The winner of the corner though, more importantly for us, was Charles Leclerc! Managing to claim the lead just before the race was red flagged because of the crash, he showed very promising speed in the first stint and kept ahead of the rest of the cars comfortably until his pitstop. And this despite the couple of heart-in-mouth engine cutout incidents that had me believing Ferrari clownery had hit again! His second stint was much slower unfortunately, with the tyres giving up towards the end of the race and Lewis overtaking him with 2 laps to go. Heartbreak!

Among other drivers, Daniel Ricciardo had the best race of his season, finishing just behind his teammate (albeit a long way behind in terms of time) keeping the other prancing Ferrari behind him for half the race. As a fan of good drivers, that makes me happy. As a Ferrari fan though - not good. Carlos had good recovery once again this season from his sprint race incident. That ferrari though.. I don't know if it is a good thing that the car is changing so much next year because this car is quite close to going back to the top of the grid! More clownery, eh.

At the end of the weekend, Mercedes is much closer to the top again with both drivers getting onto the podium (with Charles! Yay!) and Checo finishing a long way behind. And so we're back to racing in Hungary next, which is a happy hunting ground for Lewis, as well as a good track for Ferrari. Can't wait to see what the last race before the summer brings us, and if there are or aren't any British driver announcements at important teams.. *winks*

Until then - Viszlát! (I won't pretend I didn't google that one)