Formula One ( F1 )

Aston Martin looking strong. Mercedes seem to have fucked it again.

Alonso finally makes a positive career move it seems.

I'll be amazed if Stroll races on Sunday, check out how he's holding the wheel around 1:43 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwzHZBsyuLU

Also, absolute classic Stroll moment around 25 seconds in, oblivious as always to anything going on behind him.

Ah man, should he even be racing?

He apparently needs help getting in and out of the car. For some reason I thought that drivers had to be able to get out in a certain number of seconds without outside assistance. A guy who is driving with one hand seems a little bit dangerous to others too.

Seems like his hands are fine, probably shouldn't be allowed to race due to a chronic absence of spatial awareness though.

Words will be had I’m sure when alonso figures out who tagged him

If Alonso ends up in P5, I don't think anything could put him in a bad mood!

And as much as I hate to admit it, fair play to Stroll for racing like this. After seeing him struggle to hold the wheel in practice he's managed pretty well. Granted his baseline still seems to be crashing into anything that gets close to him.

Yeah fair, he’s got a little way to go yet to achieve Maldonado levels of cult status

Absolutely loving seeing Alonso fighting at the front, for my money the best wheel-to-wheel driver on the grid potentially fighting with Mercs and Ferraris is an excellent prospect for this season.

I love being a Ferrari fan, it's great.

On the flipside, podium for Alonso?

unbelievable drive from alonso - awesome stuff

Aston delivered 99% of the entertainment in that.

The stewards’ constant trolling of Occon the last 1%

Gr9 drive from Alonso! Hopefully see more of that through the season.

Alonso for pole?

Someone check if Briatore is hanging about in the Aston Martin pitwall

Strolls move on Sainz was a++

The rest was a bit boring

Vibes in the McLaren garage must be great.

The set-up of the AM must be pretty great if it's making Stroll look like a quality driver, it was a nice move though.

I feel a bit sorry for McLaren - they seemed like they were on the way to challenging at the top a couple of seasons ago, then yesterday one of them came out of a corner in position to over take a Williams & the Williams just drove away from them on the straight. That must be so demoralising!

Alonso's podium has been reinstated: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.breaking-fernando-alonsos-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-podium-reinstated-after.1QaHGAtZu9W5k6nYsnR1id.html

This was excellent:

https://twitter.com/alo_oficial/status/1637827068653084673

Also his whole interview bit about not really caring about the 3 points as he got the podium, the pictures, the champagne, the sponsors got their brands up there etc. He's fantastic at shit-stirring when the FIA mess up.

FIA trying to manufacture drama again with spectacularly shit results.

Dead sport whilst this is their mindset.

Another shambolic end to a race, how many other top level sports have the results so badly impacted by the sports management?

The implementation of VAR in premier league football maybe?

The whole race was shambolic :/ . Made for show red flags, this carnival of a 'sport' keeps hitting new lows.

Good for Netflix I'm sure.

Can't exactly ask all the cars to pull over and hold on while we check the replays like other sports though.

Definitely think the Alonso podium mess was 100% on the FIA, but this time around I'm struggling to think of a neater solution. As far as I can tell they followed precedent and I can't really understand what they've apparently did wrong. Though it did feel like they should've called the safety car as soon as Magnussen's tyre was sitting on track.

On a more positive note, big fan of the changes they've made to the circuit in recent years. Used to be a consistently dull race (not helped when it was the first race of the season either).

Should and could have ended the race on a safety car, just like when Max snatched the championship.

Both done to create drama rather than follow procedure and precedent.

Honestly I'd have just called it how they were when they all got called in at the end but appreciate that's not follow the rules (but then when have they).

Alternatively most if not all of the cars were past the crash site by the time they threw the red so it wasn't an emergency, let the safety car pick them up then last lap behind that. Would have been a bit of a damp ending to the race but that's life, the farce they gave us was pathetic.

The Alonso/sainz thing was a head scratcher too - how can you punish one person for a collision that was essentially struck off by resetting Alonso? Doesn't make sense to me.

Referees/officials shouldn't be deciding wins & it happens all too often recently in F1.

Was a good race though & I did enjoy it so not complaining too heavily!