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2022 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Results & aftermath

GAME ON: Verstappen strikes back for Round 2 victory in Saudi Arabia with late pass on P2 Leclerc; Sainz P3 & unlucky Perez P4, as 2022 appears to be two-team battle between Ferrari & Red Bull

After failing to finish in Round 1 of the 2022 Formula 1 season last week in Bahrain and starting from a disappointing P4 for this Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen received not only improved reliability but also the key breaks during the race to out-duel Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and take his first win of the season. Leclerc and Ferrari had been brilliant all day, using a devious head fake that lured the pole-sitting Red Bull of Sergio Perez into an early stop on Lap 16 while Leclerc stayed out despite team radio suggesting otherwise. It proved to be the first pivotal moment of an eventful race because Williams’ Nicholas Latifi crashed out on the very next lap and forced the deployment of a Safety Car. That allowed the rest of the field to come to the pits for cheap stops for fresh rubber while Perez had just completed his for the full fare. When everyone had cycled through behind the Safety Car, Leclerc now led the race, with Verstappen leapfrogging both Sainz and his teammate Perez for second, while Sainz and Perez squabbled over P3 and P4 respectively. At that point, it looked for all the world that Leclerc had the best car and he seemed to lead out Verstappen fairly easily once the race went back to green on Lap 21.

But the tricky and tight Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit was not done doling out surprises on the day and after twenty-six fairly straightforward laps with the main contenders staying in lockstep the proceedings were again interrupted. First, the Alpine of a hard charging Fernando Alonso lost power and slowed to a stop just in front of pit entry on Lap 37 and then the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo followed suit in practically the exact same area a lap later. This forced the race director not only to engage the Virtual Safety Car in order to retrieve the stranded pair of cars but also to keep the pits closed this time due to their proximate location. Interestingly, by the time the VSC ended on Lap 41 Verstappen had crept a little closer to Leclerc than he was able to at race pace and now only trailed the lead Prancing Horse by just under a second, the delta necessary to activate the Drag Reduction System in the rear wing. It also set things up for a grandstand finish between the two drivers, who so far have to be seen as the favorites for this year’s championship. Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia — Qualifying results

Red Bull’s Perez snatches pole from Ferrari’s Leclerc at tricky Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit; Sainz P3, Verstappen P4; Hamilton shockingly knocked out in Q1; Schumacher airlifted to hospital after vicious Q2 shunt

On an incident-filled and frankly scary Saturday qualifying for tomorrow’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, it was Red Bull’s ostensible Number Two who managed to come out on top of the timing sheets. Veteran Sergio Perez bested not only his much more heralded teammate, Max Verstappen, but also both Ferraris, the team that looks most likely to challenge Red Bull for the big prizes this season. With a rebel drone strike on a nearby oil facility yesterday sending a a wave of unease through the paddock, the simmering tension was further compounded when Haas’s Mick Schumacher lost it during Q2 and suffered a vicious shunt  Turn 10 of this very tight and tricky Jeddah Conriche Street Circuit that shot him into one concrete barrier and then across to the other side of the track and down the road for quite some ways. While the Haas was completely destroyed, the car also did its part by breaking apart at the rear, as designed, thereby dissipating energy away from the driver. So, despite the massive impact, the initial medical reports on Schumacher were all positive and he was airlifted to hospital for precautionary reasons rather than emergency ones. However, the young German, who is trying to follow in his seven-time champion father Michael’s footsteps, was preemptively ruled out for the Grand Prix and it looks like Haas will only be fielding Kevin Magnussen’s car when the lights go out for tomorrow’s race. Magnussen kept his cool after his teammate’s disturbing crash and qualified P10.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Schumacher’s accident led to a lengthy Red Flag period with just under five minutes in Q2, both for Schumacher’s painfully slow extraction from his wrecked car and then for some serious track cleanup and barrier repair at the scene of the crash site. But the marshals and race directors did yeoman’s work and were able to get Quali back underway, leading to the all important top ten shootout in Q3. Ferrari had looked the strongest on overall one-lap pace through the race weekend so far, so it was no surprise to see Charles Leclerc, last week’s race winner and pole-sitter in Bahrain, lay down the quickest lap as the seconds ticked down in the final qualifying session. His teammate Carlos Sainz slotted in right behind him by a little over a tenth on his final lap, making it a provisional Ferrari front row lockout, But Perez had other ideas. The veteran pilot drove a flawless final lap, coming nerve wrakingly close to the barriers at times, but wringing the maximum speed out of the Red Bull to earn his first-ever Formula 1 pole and beat back the Ferrari challenge for today. Interestingly, his normally superlative teammate Verstappen struggled to get his Soft Pirelli tires into their optimal operational window durning a cool and breezy night in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and the Dutch reigning world champion could only muster the fourth fastest time. So it will be Perez and Leclerc on the front row and Sainz and Verstappen on row two, which should make for a really intriguing and likely contentious opening lap in tomorrow’s GP. Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Results & aftermath

Leclerc victorious in season opener, Sainz P2 in promising start to 2022 campaign for Ferrari; disastrous late double DNF for Red Bull leads to podium for Mercedes’ Hamilton, P4 for Russell

In the first race of the 2022 Formula 1 season, team Ferrari proved that its early mastery of the new ground effect-dependent chassis and new engine specs was not a fluke. The famed Scuderia from Maranello, which suffered a prolonged period of mediocrity for much of the prior turbo-hybrid era, saw a spring resurgence as their blood red Prancing Horses finished one-two in the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. Charles Leclerc, who clearly was the fastest man of the weekend, earned victory after starting from the pole, while his stablemate Carlos Sainz fought hard and took advantage of the terminal failures of both contending Red Bulls late in the race to come home a happy  P2. That marked the first one-two Ferrari finish in a GP since 2019 in Singapore when Sebastian Vettel led home Leclerc. While Leclerc was relatively dominant all day, he was effectively harassed by Verstappen’s Red Bull for the lead throughout, including a ding dong, see saw battle between the two after the first round of pit stops between Laps 16 and 20. Verstappen and his team made effective use of the undercut coming in a lap earlier than then Monegasque to gain track position on Leclerc, which led to several laps of Verstappen passing Leclerc going into Turn 1 and Leclerc snatching the lead back coming out of Turn 4, where the Ferrari’s excellence in the slow speed corners neutralized the Red Bull’s straight line pace advantage. After a period of holding stations and status quo for many laps after that while Verstappen bided his time, it looked like it would be game on again between the two contenders when a full Safety Car was deployed on Lap 46 of this 57-lap contest after Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri stopped on track and unceremoniously burst into flames. It proved to be a very bad omen for other Red Bull-engined cars.

With the field now bunched up again behind Leclerc after pretty much everyone dove to the pits for the cheap stop and a switch to the high performing Soft Pirelli tires to finish out the race, Leclerc’s advantage over Verstappen was reduced to less than a second. But by the time the Safety Car tucked in at the end of Lap 50, Verstappen had been on the radio complaining about a heavy feel to the steering, perhaps having something to do with the power steering hydraulics. Leclerc initiated the restart superbly and gapped Verstappen, although the Dutch reigning world champion still seemed able to stay on the lead Ferrari’s gearbox. But Verstappen’s radio messages to and from the pit wall kept getting more fraught and there was clearly trouble brewing in the car. Sure enough, on Lap 54 something in Verstappen’s engine let go and he was quickly overtaken by most of those behind him. Verstappen wound up limping his mount to the pits but the issue was terminal and he was forced to retire. Climbing out of the car in stunned disbelief as the race stormed to its conclusion without him was a sad way to begin the defense of his first championship.

Continue reading →

2022 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Qualifying results

Leclerc snatches pole for season opener, Sainz P3 in promising start for Ferrari; Red Bull’s reigning champ Verstappen qualifies P2, Hamilton only P5 as Mercedes struggle

The real beginning of Formula 1’s latest new era yielded a multitude of surprises, as the teams put the completely redesigned cars on display for the first time in earnest during Saturday Qualifying for tomorrow’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. With a radical new set of rules changing the look and design of the cars, most notably in cutting down on the complexity of the wings and exterior aero elements for less downforce but with a renewed emphasis on ground effects to stick the chassis to the road surface in exchange, it was the first opportunity to see which teams came out of the box strong and which still had work yet to do. And the answer appears to be that Ferrari has made the biggest improvements under the new regulations and the famed team from Maranello could well be geared up for a mano a mano brawl with Red Bull and their reigning champion, Max Verstappen, for the big prizes at the end of the year. Obviously, one swallow does not make a spring, but Charles Leclerc was able to put his blood red Prancing Horse on pole under the lights at the Bahrain International Circuit, besting Verstappen’s vaunted Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull RB18 at the line by a relatively hefty .123-seconds. Confirming the potential power of the new Ferrari design, Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz was also in contain for the pole, though in the end he slotted in at P3 just barely of Verstappen’s pace. Meanwhile, the Dutch champ’s Ref Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, looked set to reprise his pivotal wingman role once again in 2022, as the Mexican veteran could manage no better than the fourth fastest lap in the face of the Prancing Horses’ rediscovered competitiveness.

The inverse of Ferrari’s resurgent good fortune was the poor debut performance of the normally mighty Mercedes new W13 chassis. With the new ground effects also come new aero headaches and Mercedes have suffered from severe oscillations, aka “porpoising”, throughput testing and in these first days of practice. While the team’s braintrust were able to dial out some of that, especially on their seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton’s mount, Hamilton could still do no better than a P5 start for tomorrow’s race. To say the least, that is an unfamiliar position for the Briton, who frankly dominated the just completed hybrid era until the ascendence of Verstappen and his controversial championship-clinching win to end the 2021 campaign in Abu Dhabi last December. Worse still for the eight-time consecutive Constructors’ Champions, their new number two, England’s young George Russell, suffered the ignominy of qualifying down in P9, about where he would normally end up in the pokey Williams last year. If that wasn’t disheartening enough, the previous Merc second banana, Valtteri Bottas, out-qualified Russell in P6 with his new team, the Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo. In fact, Ferrari power looked like this first weekend’s winner already, with not only Bottas keeping his Q3 streak alive at Alfa but also Kevin Magnussen marking his return to F1 with a brilliant effort to capture P7 on the grid for perpetual back marker Haas despite battling hydraulic issues. and it was a very promising day for the Scuderia on the power plant front. On the other side off the engine equation, all four Mercedes-powered McLarens and Aston Martins failed to make it into the final qualifying round. Savvy veteran Fernando Alonso willed his Alpine Renault into P8 with a fine final effort while the Red Bull (Honda)-powered AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly struggled with overall handling rand could do no better than P10.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Bahrain GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:31.471 1:30.932 1:30.558 15
2 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING RBPT 1:31.785 1:30.757 1:30.681 14
3 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:31.567 1:30.787 1:30.687 15
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING RBPT 1:32.311 1:31.008 1:30.921 18
5 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:32.285 1:31.048 1:31.238 17
6 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 1:31.919 1:31.717 1:31.560 15
7 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 1:31.955 1:31.461 1:31.808 12
8 14 Fernando Alonso ALPINE RENAULT 1:32.346 1:31.621 1:32.195 14
9 63 George Russell MERCEDES 1:32.269 1:31.252 1:32.216 17
10 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI RBPT 1:32.096 1:31.635 1:32.338 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN here in the States beginning at 11AM Eastern here in the States. Can Ferrari set the pace over the course of a full Grand Prix or will Verstappen’s superlative skills where down the Prancing Horses and deny them victory? And just how much pain will Mercedes take tomorrow as the team focuses on early season damage limitation? Look forward to seeing you then to find out how it all shakes out in the 2022 opener!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Russia — Qualifying results

Norris earns surprise pole at Sochi in wet conditions; Sainz takes P2, Russell P3; Hamilton falls to P4 after late crash entering pits

With Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton’s chief rival, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, doomed to start last or nearly last in tomorrow’s Russian Grand Prix due to not only the Dutchman’s penalty for crashing into Hamilton two weeks ago at Monza but also his team’s decision to swap out Verstappen’s engine at track that doesn’t really suit them, Hamilton was looking to grab pole at the Sochi Autodrom and set himself up for maximum points for the race. However, the weather and a rare unforced error by the seven-time World Champion put paid to that plan. Somewhat stunningly, Hamilton found himself with only the fourth best time on the day, a fast lap he had set early in the final quali session while on the Intermediate wet weather Pirelli tires after a day of rain here on the shores of the Black Sea. But the rain had stopped for long enough and the track had dried to such an extent by the start of Q3 that other team’s gambled on switching to slick tires in an effort to achieve a superior time to the one Hamilton set on the Inters. Williams’  George Russell was the first to commit, followed very shortly by all the other non-Mercedes drivers. And while at first it did not appear the risk was worth the reward, the circuit continued to improve and a true dry line had formed as the time wound down in Q3. That saw the Mercedes pit wall make a somewhat tardy call to bring their boys in and match the others’ strategies by throwing on some Soft Pirellis, too. However, Hamilton badly botched his pit entrance for the change, smacking the wall at pit in hard and essentially snapping his front wing in half. Not only did the team have to take much longer time than anticipated to give Hamilton a new wing but it also backed up his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, who had to wait until those repairs to the team leader were made. By the time the Mercedes duo reemerged, the other runners had been able to get their tires heated up properly with several consecutive laps, something the two Silver Arrows no longer had the time to do.

This redounded to the benefit of several drivers not named Hamilton, as the normally superlative English hot shoe spun off track when trying to get something out of his cold tires and his earlier time on the treaded wet weather tires would have to be the one that stood. It only ended up being good enough for P4 on the grid, as first Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and then McLaren’s Lando Norris and Russell overhauled him. Continue reading →

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Italy — Results & aftermath

MADNESS AT MONZA: Ricciardo wins, Norris second for shock McLaren 1-2; Hamilton and Verstappen take each other out mid race; Bottas salvages P3 for Mercedes after Perez penalty

In a stunning result for the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday, beleaguered McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo shocked the Formula 1 paddock by passing the pole-sitting Red Bull of Max Verstappen when the lights went out to start the race and somehow held on to take the win when the full 53 laps of this classic contest at Monza had been run. Better yet for the team, their second car, driven by the talented young Englishman Lando Norris, was able to keep pace with his older teammate, tucking in right behind Ricciardo to cross the line in P2 as the checkers flew. So, not only was it the completely rebuilt team’s first victory since 2012 but that made it the first 1-2 for McLaren since back in 2010 when Lewis Hamilton was still driving for them, and Ricciardo’s first win since 2018 when he was Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull. A truly amazing renaissance for the Aussie in Italy!

Meanwhile, behind the top two papaya colored McLarens the slow burning antagonism between this season’s top two championship contenders came to an unfortunate and dramatic new inflection point. With Verstappen and his chief rival for the drivers’ title, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton, splitting their tire strategies to start the race, Verstappen pitted first on Lap 24 to doff his initial set of Medium Pirelli tires in favor of the Hards. But it was an uncharacteristically awful start for the normally crisp Red Bull pit crew when a problem either with the gun or the nut of the right front led to a whopping 11 seconds stationary for the Dutchman instead of the usual 2.5-3 seconds. After already losing the lead to the hard charging Ricciardo on the opening lap, that left Verstappen fuming even more as he rejoined down in P10. Meanwhile Hamilton, who had started on the Hards, pitted two laps later for fresh Mediums, ostensibly giving him the performance advantage for the remainder of the race. But Hamilton’s stop was also on the slow side, some 4-seconds, which combined with Verstappen’s incredibly slow stop, saw Hamilton reemerge from the pit lane behind Norris and nearly alongside Verstappen, who was streaking down the start-finish straight.

With Hamilton leading into the Turn 1 chicane complex by half a car, Verstappen tried to stuff his Red Bull into the tightening radius of the curves. Hamilton didn’t give a millimeter and Verstappen wound up plowing through the big sausage curbs at the edge of the chicane, launching his Red Bull directly on top of Hamilton’s Silver Arrow. Thankfully the Halo device once again did its job and showed its merit, because the full weight of the Red Bull landed on top of the Mercedes’ roll hoop and cockpit area, cracking the floor of Verstappen’s mount in a fierce spray of carbon fiber. Verstappen’s rear will did appear to make contact with Hamilton’s helmet but thankfully the Halo deflected any more serious impacts and both drivers emerged unscathed. Their races, however, were shockingly over in that instant, with Verstappen netting only two points on the weekend in Italy due to finishing second in Sprint Qualifying on Saturday and Hamilton getting exactly zero on a day when he had the pace to perhaps challenge for victory. Verstappen now leads Hamilton by 5 in the Drivers’ in a a rivalry that has officially reached the boiling point with a planned eight more rounds to go. For those who’ve wanted a return to the good old days of Prost versus Senna, it appears those dreams of fierce conflict are coming true in the season long Hamilton-Verstappen rivalry. All eyes will surely be on these two fiery competitors when racing resumes in Russia in a fortnight to see just what happens next.

That elite double DNF left it to both team’s number two drivers to salvage what they could on the day. While Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, who was officially jettisoned from the team for next season just this past week, did yeoman’s work to drag himself up from the rear where he was forced to start due to a host of engine component change penalties, the Finn finally found himself bogged down at P4 and trailing the lone surviving Red Bull of Sergio Perez. While it looked like Bottas had finally overtaken Perez on Lap 43, the Red Bull was able to fight back and retake the position when Bottas overcooked the move just a little too much. But Perez was assessed a 5-second time penalty for leaving the track and then gaining an advantage during an earlier pass by the Mexican on Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. That meant that in the end Bottas was elevated to P3 and the last spot on the podium after his remarkably good recovery drive and Perez was demoted to P5 behind Leclerc, who also benefitted greatly from the failure of Verstappen and Hamilton to finish. Carlos Sainz slotted in at P6, making it a good enough day for Ferrari in front of their home fans, but perhaps a little less than totally pleasing, as they watched McLaren, their closest rival in the Constructors’ Standings, grab a terrific haul of points with their spectacular 1-2 finish.

Lance Stroll came home in P7 in his Aston Martin, the two Alpines of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon were P8 and P10 respectively and George Russell, who will leave Williams for Mercedes next year, finished in P9.

Top 10 finishers of the Italian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 53 1:21:54.365 26
2 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 53 +1.747s 18
3 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 53 +4.921s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 53 +7.309s 12
5 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 53 +8.723s 10
6 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 53 +10.535s 8
7 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 53 +15.804s 6
8 14 Fernando Alonso ALPINE RENAULT 53 +17.201s 4
9 63 George Russell WILLIAMS MERCEDES 53 +19.742s 2
10 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 53 +20.868s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two week’s time, the Russian Grand Prix from the visually stunning Sochi Autodrom on the Black Sea.  Look forward to seeing you then to find out how Verstappen and Hamilton recover from their latest contretemps!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Belgium — Results & aftermath

WASHOUT AT SPA: Belgian Grand Prix aborted due to heavy rain; Verstappen categorized P1, Russell P2 and Hamilton P3 on qualifying form; half points to be awarded

Formula 1 suffered a dismal return after the long summer break when the Belgian Grand Prix was abandoned due to heavy rains at the long and hilly Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Sunday. After trying several times over three hours to get the race going, Race Control eventually made the difficult decision to terminate the race and call the drivers into the pits for a final time on the day. Despite only running laps behind the Safety Car, half points will still be awarded to the top ten “finishers,” which mainly came down to how the drivers qualified in yesterday’s not quite but nearly as wet three rounds of Saturday qualifying. So that saw Red Bull’s Max Verstappen the rather anticlimactic victory today, with Williams’ George Russell earning his maiden podium by dint of his excellent effort yesterday and taking P2. The young Briton led out his potential future teammate, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton, who trundled home classified in P3.

The biggest losers on the a day when F1 itself took it on the chin were Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, who was set to start in P7 but who crashed out earlier on a pre-race reconnaissance lap and finished dead last in P20 after his crew scrambled to get his car back together during the delays; McLaren’s Lando Norris, who had to start from P15 due to his own qualifying shunt and the resultant 5-grid spot penalty for replacing his engine and finished there; and Mercedes second driver Valtteri Bottas, who was also serving a penalty for his part in the melee at the start of the prior Hungarian GP, and also finished out of the points in P12, certainly not the result the Finn was looking for with Russell making a strong push to take his Mercedes factory seat. Those three competitive drivers would surely have been looking to pull themselves into the points paying positions but were denied that opportunity by the uncooperative weather.

Their misfortunes really benefitted Ferrari, whose Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz only qualified P11 and P13 respectively but saw their positions elevated to P8 and P10 through the various misfortunes of others by the time the race was called off. Further up in the field, Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren earned P4 with his sterling quali effort, Sebastian Vettel saw his Aston Martin classified a solid P5 and Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly came home in P6. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon in P7 and Williams Nicolas Latifi in P9 rounded out the Top 10. Latifi’s points result also made it a banner day for team Williams, which along with Russell’s freak podium, made for a much needed shot in the arm for the storied F1 team that has really been scuffling for the last several years.

Top 10 finishers of the Belgian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 1 0:03:27.071 12.5
2 63 George Russell WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1 +1.995s 9
3 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1 +2.601s 7.5
4 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 1 +4.496s 6
5 5 Sebastian Vettel ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 1 +7.479s 5
6 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 1 +10.177s 4
7 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 1 +11.579s 3
8 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1 +12.608s 2
9 6 Nicholas Latifi WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1 +15.484s 1
10 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1 +16.166s 0.5

Complete race results, such as they are, available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time, the return of the Dutch Grand Prix from the legendary dunes of the Zandvort circuit after an absence of 36 years. Let’s hope the weather cooperates in Holland after such a disappointing weekend in Belgium — and hope to see you then for some actual racing!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Belgium — Qualifying results

Verstappen takes pole in wet conditions at Spa, denying overachieving P2 Russell; Hamilton settles for P3; promising Norris crashes out in lurid Q3 shunt at Eau Rouge

Formula 1 returned from the long summer break and arrived at the fabled Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium with a bang — a bit too literally for McLaren’s talented young driver, Lando Norris. On a consistently wet day in the Ardennes, the rain picked up between the second and third qualifying sessions and Norris found himself running a hot lap early in Q3 that only lasted as long as Eau Rouge. His McLaren twitched in the standing water there and when Norris attempted to correct he lost control of his mount and spun violently into the tire barriers, destroying the car. Norris appeared to injure his left arm in the violent shunt but was otherwise unscathed when he finally emerged from his wrecked chassis after a tense few moments. Just like that, one of the main contenders for pole at the Belgian Grand Prix was out of the running and Norris will also likely have to start from the pits tomorrow after the crew spend the night rebuilding his car.

After a long Red Flag delay to clean up the track, the remaining nine drivers and their teams scrambled to figure out how best to deal with the weather, which thankfully lightened up during the pause, though it was certainly still wet. As time ran down in the stop-start Q3, everyone decided that Intermediate wet tires were worth the risk and at first Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton set a time that appeared fast enough to claim pole. But the circuit continued to improve and, surprisingly, it was the Williams of George Russell who displaced the seven-time champion Hamilton from that top spot by several tenths as time ran out in the final quali session. When Hamilton was unable to better Russell’s mark on his final attempt, it looked like the younger of the two Englishman might earn a flukey but still joyous first career pole. But Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had other ideas. With the bitter taste of his collision-affected P10 at the last race in Hungary still fresh in his mouth and plenty of time to brood about it during the long break, the young Dutch Master hooked up his final lap beautifully and dashed Russell’s pole dreams, besting the Briton by a shade over three-tenths. Nevertheless, Russell was still elated to earn his first front row start in F1, as were Wiliams after a long slog back to respectability, and he will line up in P2 across from Verstappen to start tomorrow’s Grand Prix.

Hamilton had to settle for the third best time and Norris’s McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who seemed to be nowhere earlier in qualifying, excelled as the sessions wore on and earned a much needed solid P4 starting spot for himself and the shaken team. Cagey old veteran Sebastian Vettel, who had been calling for a Red Flag prior to Norris’ shunt and was livid with the race directors after the crash, still kept his head together enough to pilot his Aston Martin to the fifth fastest time on the day. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly also did well in the wet and will line up alongside Vettel on the third row in P6 on the grid. Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez could only manage a time good enough for P7 but he still bested the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, who not only qualified down in P8 but will be pushed back 5 spots on the grid due to his culpability for running into Verstappen at the Hugaroring on the opening lap. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, the shock winner of that contentious Hungarian GP, set a P9 time but will slot in at P8 on the grid for tomorrow’s contest due to Bottas’ penalty. That is exactly the starting spot Ocon had in Hungary when he drove to victory so the Frenchman may be feeling that he has the rest of the field right where he wants them.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Belgian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:58.717 1:56.559 1:59.765 20
2 63 George Russell WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:59.864 1:56.950 2:00.086 24
3 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:59.218 1:56.229 2:00.099 22
4 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 2:01.583 1:57.127 2:00.864 22
5 5 Sebastian Vettel ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 2:00.175 1:56.814 2:00.935 23
6 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 2:00.387 1:56.440 2:01.164 23
7 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:59.334 1:56.886 2:02.112 22
8 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:59.870 1:56.295 2:02.502 22
9 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 2:01.824 1:57.354 2:03.513 23
10 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:58.301 1:56.025 DNF 19

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live beginning at 9AM Eastern on ESPN2 here in the States. With more foul weather forecast at Spa for Sunday it could be another crazy race result in a season full of them. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Hungary — Results & aftermath

Alpine’s Ocon earns shock victory in Hungary after first lap melee takes out five top contenders; Vettel finishes P2 for Aston Martin but DQ’d for fuel violation; Hamilton fights back to take P3 after early strategic error by Mercedes; Verstappen salvages P10 on disastrous day for Red Bull

Just a little bit of rain before the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix was enough to soak the Hungaroring and lead directly to a thoroughly scrambled race with some of the most unexpected results in a Formula 1 contest seen in years. With all the runners starting the GP on Intermediate wet weather Pirelli tires, the die was cast for massive unpredictability when Mercedes number two man, Valtteri Bottas, perhaps trying to make up for a poor start that saw the Finn lose several spots when the lights went out, badly misjudged his breaking point going into Turn 1 and plowed into the back of McLaren’s Lando Norris. That set off a chain reaction of mayhem and collisions amongst several top contenders that led to the retirement of not just Bottas and Norris but also the Red Bull of Sergio Perez, the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll when all were mauled too badly to continue. And while pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton was unaffected by his teammate’s blunder, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was not so lucky, as he was smashed into by Stroll when the Canadian attempted to reenter the track after taking evasive action prior. That led to major damage to Verstappen’s floor and barge board that was not able to be fully repaired even in the prolonged Red Flag period for cleanup that followed that massive first lap shunt, badly compromising the Dutchman’s race pace thereafter.

Meanwhile, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, who started in P8 and P10 respectively, danced their way through the carnage and were able to emerge unscathed with the wreckage in their rearview and only Hamilton in front, with Ocon ascending to P2 and Vettel to P3 when first the Safety Car was deployed and then the race halted for the Red Flag. After the debris field had been cleaned up, Hamilton led the field back to the grid for a standing restart at the end of Lap 3. But the Englishman found himself starting completely alone on the track because the entirety of the other fourteen cars still able to participate dove into the pits to get off the wet tires and onto slicks, as the circuit had dried sufficiently for that maneuver and no more rain was forecast on the day. It was a bad miscalculation by the Mercedes brain trust, perhaps aggravated by the ban on team comms with the leader during the formation lap, because Hamilton was forced to plod around for an extra lap before he could get his own slick Medium Pirellis, while the entirety of the field zoomed around on that fresh racy rubber. By the time Hamilton emerged form the pits, the erstwhile race leader found himself dead last in P14 (Haas’ Nikita Mazepin having been taken out of the race by a pit lane collision with the unsafely released Alfa of Kimi Raikkonen). That strange strategic error by the usually nimble Mercedes pit wall saw Ocon take the lead of the race with only Vettel within shouting distance of the Frenchman. With Hamilton having it all to do to claw his way back into contention, Ocon controlled the race masterfully at the front and his Alpine team also aided him with a sterling pit stop at the end of Lap 37 nearly a second quicker than Vettel’s the lap prior. That proved to be the decisive edge that Ocon needed and the 24-year-old Frenchman was able to keep the 34-year-old and four time champion Vettel behind him until the very end no matter how much pressure the German veteran applied. When the checkers flew, Ocon took was 1.859 to the good ahead of Vettel to earn a stunning maiden Formula 1 victory that no oddsmaker would have given you 100-to-1 on at the beginning of the day.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

To make matters even more frustrating for the already frustrated Vettel, his Aston ran out of fuel on the cool down lap and then was unable to provide a liter’s worth of gas to the FIA, as required. Therefore, Vettel was disqualified and his terrific P2 result nullified. That meant that Hamilton, who fought like crazy, particularly with Ocon’s Alpine teammate, Fernando Alonso, in real multi-lap, wheel-banging ding dong battle, to will himself up to a P3 podium spot despite feeling dizziness and fatigue during the contest, was then promoted to P2 and earned 18 championship points, a net of three extra points due to Vettel’s infraction. Meanwhile, Verstappen struggled to make headway against normally inferior competitors in his badly damaged Red Bull and could only make it back up to P10, earning an addition point due to his promotion after the race. Continue reading →

2021 F1 Grand Prix of Austria — Qualifying results

Verstappen aces second consecutive pole at Red Bull Ring; Norris a surprisingly potent P2 for McLaren, Perez P3; Hamilton & Mercedes off the pace

A week after dominating the Styrian Grand Prix for an easy win, Red Bull’s championship-leading Max Verstappen was back to his imperious ways at the team’s home circuit, as the superlative Dutchman earned a second consecutive pole position at the Red Bull Ring, this time for tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix. On a track that suits him like a hand-tailored garment, Verstappen kept his positive momentum going on a day when his main championship rival, Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton, took a step backwards. Not only did Verstappen earn the top starting spot in Saturday qualifying but instead of Hamilton or the second Merc of Valtteri Bottas nipping at his heels, Verstappen will have McLaren’s hard charging young star Lando Norris alongside him on the front row of the grid in P2. The 21-year-old Englishman maximized the superior straight-line speed of his Mercedes-powered MCL35M chassis to earn his best ever Formula 1 starting spot, setting a fast time just .048 behind the points leader and, alongside the 23-year-old Verstappen, will make up one of the youngest front rows in F1 history. Norris’ success came at the expense of the factory Mercedes drivers, as Hamilton could manage no better than a P4 time and Bottas slotted in at P5, with Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez bettering them both by setting the third fastest time in Q3. That leaves Checo in prime position to play the loyal Red Bull wingman during tomorrow’s race. It’s now fairly clear that this track no longer suits the Silver Arrows as it did a year ago and that other teams have improved their performance here at the Red Bull Ring enough in the interim to make Mercedes look positively mediocre. Toto Wolff and the AMG braintrust will have to figure out a way to minimize the potential damage from tomorrow’s race by finishing both cars well up in the points and then looking forward to better days at Silverstone in two weeks. Because realistically, the Mercs have very little shot at winning against the ascendent Red Bull of Verstappen and neither Hamilton or Bottas may see the podium tomorrow after the checkers fly.

AlphaTauri had a very nice day of qualifying, with Pierre Gasly slotting in at P6 and the somewhat erratic rookie Yuki Tsunoda coming home seventh fastest. Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was solid in P8 but will have to start behind his teammate Lance Stroll, who qualified P10, after it was judged that Vettel had impeded Alpine’s Fernando Alonso during Q2, earning the veteran German driver a three-spot grid penalty. And another up-and-coming young Englishman, Williams’ George Russell, broke through into Q3 and set a time good enough for ninth fastest in that final quali session, an exciting milestone for both the rebuilding team and their ambitious and talented young pilot.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Austrian GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR Q1 Q2 Q3 LAPS
1 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:04.249 1:03.927 1:03.720 16
2 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 1:04.345 1:04.415 1:03.768 19
3 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 1:04.833 1:04.483 1:03.990 24
4 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:04.506 1:04.258 1:04.014 18
5 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:04.563 1:04.376 1:04.049 19
6 10 Pierre Gasly ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:04.841 1:04.412 1:04.107 21
7 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA 1:04.967 1:04.518 1:04.273 21
8 5 Sebastian Vettel ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 1:04.846 1:04.493 1:04.570 20
9 63 George Russell WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:04.907 1:04.553 1:04.591 15
10 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 1:04.927 1:04.547 1:04.618 21

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN beginning at 9AM Eastern here in the States. With Verstappen having won three out of the last four contests and looking to pull away from Hamilton in the championship, the stars seem aligned for him to so at this favorite track barring unexpected drama. The real question is if Norris can keep Perez, Hamilton and Bottas behind him for a very special result. It’s a big ask but young Lando has been building up to that kind of breakthrough all season. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!