Formula One ( F1 )

Take it out of the championship and stick them all in F2/3 cars for the weekend? The F2 race was pretty decent (though it was wet which helps)

The most exciting thing to happen took place before the race even started

I dunno, i thought the Norris/Sainz shove off looked like it was going to escalate for a moment.

Dull race as expected but normally someone clips something which at least gives us a safety car/glimmer of hope. The commentating on how special winning at Monaco was really grating yesterday but i guess they have nothing else to focus on.

Do it with go karts. Seriously.

Didn't they used to have an end-of-season go kart race with all the drivers? Some sort of charity thing, definitely remember it back in the Hamilton-Massa days. Would love to see more of that sort of stuff. Some non-championship races with everyone in the same machinery.

Race of Champions. Drivers from all sorts of motorsports... for the first 20-odd years I recall it was raced by rally drivers then it's from 2005-2008 somewhere around there where track drivers got involved and bigger names. I seem to recall it was online last year...

Went to see that in 2008 in Wembley, great to watch for sure, but more like a time-trial than racing (got to hear Alonso's R25 doing donuts inside a stadium, that was quite a noise!). Some proper wheel-to-wheel racing between the F1 drivers in equal cars would be awesome to watch though. Obviously it wouldn't be a conclusive answer to "Who's the best driver?", but I'm sure we'd get a good shake up of the current field.

Vettel finally back on top form

https://youtu.be/dNZMjWMkzF4

Much as I hate to admit it, good laugh from Mazepin there:

Engineer: "We need you to select option blah blah blah on the steering wheel. No rush, just whenever you can."
Mazepin: "Done! This isn't Monaco!"

The one time I can't watch the qualifiers it's fun

I gave up watching after the second red flag in Q1 as I'd already waited for an hour as I stupidly thought that maybe when the TV said qualifying starts at 12 it would start then not an hour later.

One thing that struck me when watching the F2, they seem to do a much better job at actual wheel-to-wheel racing. Seems in F1 you can generally get away with ignoring someone attempting to pass on the outside and run them off the track because "you were just taking your line". Not saying whether it's right or wrong, just that it does seem to have a negative impact on the racing that seems to be largely absent from other series.

2 Red Bulls vs 1 Mercedes, this is an interesting switch up!

'I am! Shut up!'

Wonderful comment from Leclerc when the engineer tells him to push and go flat out

Was that not Tsunoda?

I only looked up when I overheard and saw the radio 'pop up' so could be wrong

Well... that's unfortunate

Think Verstappen can legitimately blame Paul di Resta for that.

"If he can't avoid the commentator's curse maybe he should stick to the racing"

Also, biased Vettel fan here, but a damn great drive from him today. Surprised they haven't just finished the race under safety car.

Oops.

Well... that's unfortunate

Rare mistake from Hamilton. Think he’ll feel a bit of a twat after the whole ‘marathon, not a sprint’ chat on the radio before the restart.

Great race.

Can anyone remember anything different about the first (two?) Baku races that made it/them a complete snorefest? Possibly too conservative on tyres? (Though given the amount of serious tyre failures in recent years, maybe that's not the right term)

That's the cheeriest podium I've seen in a while. Glad Hamilton fluffed it, keeps things tight.

Also, without wanting to sound like I'm beating on a drum here, what the hell happened to Bottas? Absolutely nowhere throughout the race and was legitimately racing between the Alfa Romeo and Williams cars. If Perez has hit his stride in the Red Bull it's surely time for Mercedes to upgrade to Russell if they want to hold the WCC (sure the WDC grabs the headlines but the WCC decides the prize money).