Formula One ( F1 )

Yeah the whole "why don't they just not follow the rules now when we've done that before", is understandable, but I'd rather they stuck to the rules regardless.

I think the crash was on the penultimate lap, so they'd have had to go around again. And I think making calls on whether or not to throw a red flag/safety car based on current race positions/laps remaining etc. is a big no-no (Wolff asking Masi not to call a safety car at Abu Dhabi 2021 was way out of line for that reason) IMO.

I was pretty miffed with the Sainz penalty, but they do assign penalties based on the incident itself without the result being taken into account. I'm more miffed as they tend to be pretty light on assigning penalties for turn 1 incidents on the first lap, instead leaning heavily towards racing incident calls, but that doesn't seem to hold for restarts. That type of Sainz/Alonso crash is pretty much a given at Melbourne so it's not like it was particularly out of line.

I think if it wasn't for the issues after the race in Jeddah, this would be much less of a talking point. The FIA absolutely drop the ball pretty frequently on this sort of thing. But the mess on track did warrant a red flag, so there was going to be a restart. And with 2 laps left, chaos was pretty much a given.

Even if they introduced a rule like "the race ends if red flagged after 90% laps completed", it would still have been a bit of a let down of a result. I think the FIA made the right call, it's just that all possible calls were varying levels of shit IMO.

Enjoyable shit show. Feels like Max is already becoming less popular as champ as so much of his USP was his underdog fighty man edge

Hate seeing Albon’s and Gasly’s race coming to nothing though.

Should and could have ended the race on a safety car

100% agree. what a mess!

really gutted for gasly

I think that if all the positions were reset for the parade restart, then Sainz should have had the penalty rescinded. He suffered a punishment for a mistake that had no consequences.

hulkenberg and leclerc on equal points lol

Also, Ferrari currently have fewer points now than at the same stage in their 2020 season (when they finished 6th in the constructors). By contrast, Aston Martin currently have more points than they scored across the whole of last season.

On a more positive note, looks like there's plans to have a separate sprint/feature race qualifying from Baku onward: https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/04/03/f1-sprint-format-change-azerbaijan-gp-baku/

Seems like a good move to me, it will mean less unpredictability of course without cars that have had issues in the sprint no longer being punished in the feature race. But seems like an overall sensible move.

Mega dull race until Ocon decided to try and mow down a load of photographers standing in the middle of the pit lane on the last lap. Really getting frustrated at McLaren’s poor performance now. They had the excuse of being strangled by internal budget restrictions before, but it should be much more of a level field now.

Yeah. Stars did not align on that one to make it interesting.

Baku's an odd one, it's either a complete snooze-fest or a chaotic race. I remember the first race there was utterly dull, and the next one was amazing.

On the plus side, we've got a few consecutive weekends of exciting racing lined up at... Miami, Imola, Monaco and Barcelona. Well, shit.

I kind of liked that race, if for no other reason that to see how close they were drifting along that barrier on that turn - a few were definitely brushing it, and there were some tricksy saves at times.

AI F1 off-road on FB ...

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2191901554338953&set=pcb.564835049141397

miami - cool circuit (imo) with lots of overtaking opportunities; which we did get to see... shame RB dominance is so strong this season.

amazed with no DNFs. when did that last happen?

Ferrari release photo of new car for Imola:

Ferrari strategy team currently trying to figure out if the softs or mediums are the best choice for Leclerc's car

Joking aside, it looks a bit like this in the area at the moment and apparently has meant Ferrari can't bring some of their updates to the race.

Edit: Imola GP cancelled: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65621373

At least eight people have died and 5,000 people have had to be evacuated following widespread flooding across the Emilia Romagna region.

Jesus, didn't realise it was so severe, had so far only seen the photos from the circuit.

Massive changes to the Merc W14 which might put them back in the game. Zero pods are gone in favour of what looks like a hybrid between Aston and Ferrari sidepods. Front suspension layout is different. Must have been a HUGE amount of re-packaging work. Wondering if they even adapted the chassis or just went all-out and homologated a new one. Don't even know if that would be possible under the current budget cap.

First shots.

https://twitter.com/JoostNederpelt/status/1661736567705317377

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Such a massive change. As you say, it's wild to think how much work must have gone into this.

They really should have seen the writing on the wall last season.

Don't even know if that would be possible under the current budget cap.

I imagine a lot of last year's allocation would've been directed at it to be fair. Will be interesting to see the progress. They'll naturally be aiming to be higher than Aston

They really should have seen the writing on the wall last season.

Winning a race was the worst thing that happened to them in hindsight

Blimey that was a qualifying.

It was really entertaining. Tomorrows race will almost certainly be shit though.

Unexpectedly interesting all of a sudden.

Now that they've all stopped for inters it needs to stop raining asap.