Formula One ( F1 )

Anyone watching

Lively start

Well good! Raikkonen going for it, shame it didn’t last.

Surpised at the amount of overtaking to be honest. Would be willing to bet that's largely due to the new surface causing some traction issues. Fingers crossed for some interesting weather to come!

Meh. Just watched on catch-up. Lost track of the passes but all of them were on DRS on the straight, which was a bit dull imo.

Raikkonens first lap was pretty special

Here:
https://youtu.be/2ChdaNDFI30

Was gutted he was just pushed out of points placing at the end.

Interesting article... got a very fair point. Why do Verstappen's offensive comments get a free pass?

Good on Autosport for running stuff like this, and on David Croft for apparently picking up on it in the Sky commentary. F1 and the FIA still seem quite badly in need of a fair bit of this kind of stuff pointing out to them...

This would be excellent news, Verstappen pushing for Hulkenberg to join Red Bull: https://www.planetf1.com/news/max-verstappen-wants-nico-hulkenberg-as-team-mate/

Poor Albon. Or perhaps poor Kvyat given he's the lowest on the pecking order

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it were Gasly/Albon at Alpha Tauri. Given how Gasly has flourished there I wouldn't necessarily think it's a bad thing for Albon.

^^^ The more I think about it the more I think it would be a cool idea!

Albon is nice, but he is constantly struggling. Well in the mid-field and regularly being beaten by the Alpha Tauri cars is not good enough for the top team.

Another interesting standpoint is, as much as they need a better second driver, they also need another good front running team up there with them who can be robbing points from Mercedes. It stops them completely running away with the championship and gives Red Bull a better chance of winning even if it's just through opportunistic race wins. They really need Ferrari or McLaren to be doing better. This year must feel like a pretty dull, empty 2nd place in the championship to them. The overall win is too far out of reach and there are no real challenges from 3rd place.

Very interesting article. BBC bleeped it out, but what he said really is unacceptable!

So looks like Raikkonen and Giovanazzi to remain at Alfa, with Schumacher and Mazapin to Haas. Out of all the cars/teams to stick a pair of rookies in, I think Haas would be bottom of the pile for me.

I’ve read so far that Imola is bumpy as hell and the teams have been putting on beefed up suspension to cope. Looking forward to this weekend’s race!

I think Haas would be bottom of the pile for me

I'm quietly hopeful for Haas. Maybe i don't know enough about them but they've always come across like a more traditional motorsport team to me with some fight in them.

But yeah sticking two Cole Trickle's in there is maybe not the best move.

I'm quietly hopeful for Haas. Maybe i don't know enough about them but they've always come across like a more traditional motorsport team to me with some fight in them.

Their pretty remarkable history of failing brakes as well as the recent admittance of an overheating suspension issue causing fluctuating ride heights gives me a lot of concern around the drivability and build quality of that car.

Combined with the (admittedly, occasionally hilariously so) shouty team principal. Seems like a match made in hell for a new F1 driver.

Haas are pretty transparent in that the money a driver brings is a strong deciding factor. Can only hope they at least have an experienced driver on hand as a test/reserve driver. Though I'm not sure what value they provide these days with such limited testing.

That Gunther bloke looks like a nightmare to work with. He’s pretty funny but he’s also the polar opposite of cool under pressure. He comes across panicky, unprofessional and slightly out of control.

cool under pressure

I'd give that title to Seidl and maybe Binotto, the others just seem to fluctuate between happy or pissed off. Saying the team looks like a bunch of wankers maybe isn't the most inspiring pep talk but i'd prefer that over " driver X is doing fine he just needs to make sure he performs on the weekend".

No shit Christian.

Russell re-confirmed by Williams. I guess Perez is either going to Red Bull or nowhere. I'm surprised, though, that Haas wouldn't take him rather than a rookie.

When thinking of team principal management styles I'm always reminded of that bit in the F1 doc series when Wolff was giving a pre-season pep talk to the Mercedes troops; the assembled army of henchmen were all dressed in black and appeared to be in a space aged underground lair of some sort. Toto was on a balcony and clenched his fist as he hollered something along the lines of "VEE VILL CRUSH ZEM!" [insert Mitchell & Webb "are we the baddies?" sketch here]

Ah that's good news, to be able to ignore all the talk and drive as well as he has in that car deserves a lot of credit. As crap as the disparity in car performance is it's always great to see a good driver out perform their car (maybe also Raikkonen in the Alfa and Leclerc in the Ferrari). Russell and Perez would make a weapon of a line up so either Perez isn't interested or Latifi brings a lot more cash with him.

Now imagine that same scene with Gunther swaying about pissed holding a bucket of KFC calling them all wankers.

Sounds like David Coulthard at the RB Christmas party!*

*not my personal report

**actually, that’s not fair. Nobody had a bad word to say about DC, really nice guy apparently.