Lewis joining the "winning 200th GP club" while Max competing in number of retirements 🏆💪🏻😵

Cheers to all Formula 1 fans as the holiday break is finally over and we are warming up before the very end of the season in Spa. Spa is amazing. Spa is unbelievable. Spa is everything Formula 1 needs: fast corners, speed straights, areas with critical G force level, engine power, aerodynamics and downforce - all in one. People say this track is where engine matters the most but its not just about what's inside the car but about its chassis as well. So the weekend promised Mercedes to be in front of everyone else in case they are much better in power this season but unpredictability is still what we love in this sport.

From the very first free practice wasn’t that clear who gonna dominate here in Spa that time so Mercedes had to push harder not to loose "their" track to Ferraris. And what was the most surprising that it wasn’t Seb who was "flying" the whole weekend but Kimi who has just signed the new contract with Scuderia and was able to focus on JUST driving now (not that he didn’t before).

As Seb lost all the FPs to his teammate he was still able to make it to the front row of the starting grid because of Kimi's mistake (as it was clearly claimed). Seb admitted that he probably wouldn’t be able to start the race from P2 if Kimi compiled his best lap in Q3. 

So Seb not only lost his first part of the weekend to Kimi but also the race to his principal rival - Lewis being too active at the restart and not able to attack after pushing too close before Eau Rouge. Well, Seb still has 7 points before Monza next week but it doesn’t seem too promising for him.

1. Lewis dominating in his 200th Grand Prix

Weekend at Spa was very special for Lewis in many terms. First of all, his 200th F1 career Grand Prix and his 200th race start on Sunday. Secondly, his 68th pole which means he has equaled Michael Schumacher. Thirdly, new Spa track record - 1.42.553 sec.  And the last but not the least being able to join the "winning 200th GP club" alongside Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. Good job and just 7 points left to start climbing over in the championship again.

2. Valtteri losing the podium in his championship fight

While Lewis was definitely shining the whole weekend being voted the driver of the day, his teammate Valtteri wasn’t doing that well from the very first FP finishing P5 and loosing two positions in the race because of the fatal mistake he made just after restart letting not just Kimi in front but Daniel to finish on the podium as well.

Although Valtteri admitted that he still IS in the champions fight as long as eight more races are left in this season. Promising for his fans but barely real as long as the team claimed the possibility of team strategy in the end of the championship.

3. Max losing his patience next to Fernando

Not only Mercedes and Ferarri have divided into two parts when one teammate is happier than the other. Red Bull suffered as well since Max' car had to be retired in the very beginning of the race in front of 80 thousand fans from his homwland wearing orange. 

Sadly it became the 6th retirement for Max this season and as he claimed he is now competing against Fernando (who probably declined finishing the race pointing on "engine problems" that were not found) in terms of retirements. The bad luck continues as long as Max is sure that not too many races like this left for him to quit the team.

4. Force India's on fire

The sensational highlight of the weekend was definitely the double crush between two Force Indias both times provoked by one and only Checo Perez. Firstly he decided to overtake Esteban squeezing the frenchman into the wall and secondly he didn’t let him to attack before Eau Rouge so both of them might be retired after the possible crush (thanks, God, it didn’t happen). Fortunately the biggest damage for Esteban was his broken front wing changed under safety car. At the same time Checo suffered from the puncture of the right rear and ended up retiring from P17. 

Team management finally commented on the situation making it clear that it was the last time the team let both drivers to race. Now they are about to listen to the team orders and if not - there might be further actions. It is probably what we have waited for so long from Force India.

4. Daniel a.k.a the king of restarts

The safety car provoked by the actions of two "pink panthers" pissed off Lewis being caught between SC and Seb (who still had the chance to work on his tyres behind Lewis). Lewis was so unhappy with the ACTUAL safety car on track in case it was too slow for him. 

After the race Mercedes' boss Totto Wolff commented on this incident as a lucky one to help to change the damaged tyres on Lewis' car and win the race. The same SC gave the chance to Daniel a.k.a the king of restarts to give his best to finish on the podium for the 6th time this season. Incredible result from Australian.

5. Best of others

Alongside this huge fight in the front there also were some interesting breakthroughs from the middle of the grid. Not to mention Felipe who had quite an unfortunate weekend crushing his car way too much on Friday, failing the quali and getting the 5-place penalty for speeding under yellow flags on Saturday but still finishing P8 from P16 on Sunday. 

Kind of the same it was for Roman struggling with the brakes (from P11 to P7) and for Daniil having some technical problems, plus, being penalized (5 positions on the grid) blame on Toro Rosso (from P19 to P12). Really good job for Renault with Nico finishing P6 and Jolyon being still good after getting the 5-place penalty as well. And, of course, Stoffel: 60-place pen on the grid but still finishing P14 in front of some others (I mean driving on Honda engine). 

Misfortune caught not only retired Max and Fernando (with no power as usually) but also Pascal who had to retire after a few laps and Kevin whose Haas had really good pace this weekend but the team couldn’t manage tyre situation and had to extra pit under the safety car in the wrong time.

This whole weekend was quite interesting in terms of diversity of what happened: red flags after Massa's crush on Friday, raining session with two drivers to try it on the track (Danny and Fernando), inters in the beginning of Saturday, track record beaten multiple times again, best race lap from Seb -1.46.577 sec., special helmets from Max (orange one) and Felipe, lots of gearbox penalties (Marcus, Pascal, Jolyon, Daniil, Stoffel), speeding under yellow flags penalties (Felipe and Kimi) and one "tyre" penalty (10.000$ for not giving back Lance's tyres after 40 minutes of FP), contract extensions (Kimi, Seb until 2020 and Stoffel) and looooots of different tyre strategies.

Bad times for Williams, huge improvement for Renault, kind of a promising end of the season for McLaren - that's what we saw. Lots of contracts for the next year to be signed, interesting fight for the title between Seb and Lewis, records to be beaten and hearts to be on fire - that's what awaits us in less than a week at Monza. Stay tuned!

P.S.: Just wanna let you know how much I missed writing those race blogs :)

Birthday blog: the most important life choice 🖤🏁😳

Better late than never. Here we go. My birthday blog or what was the most important of what happened to me last year.

I haven't been thinking a lot. My choice was clear. The most important and life-changing thing was my choice to work in motorsport. 

It isn't a long story. It isn't too romantic but I wanna share. So in March 2017 I've been working for the sports department in Russian information agency called R-Sport. That time I was chosen to cover Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix in Sochi having the advantage of three foreign languages.

In the end of April I came to Sochi and felt dumb. It was super hot (I prefer cold and rainy weather). The whole area was strange but nice. We went to the circuit on Wednesday to explore and on Thursday for the media day. Firstly I didn't like the whole Formula 1 thing. It was too unknown and too fancy. My four days there led me from hating the Paddock thing to absolutely loving it. I met so many amazing people from drivers to journalists who seemed strangers to me at first but became a kind of a family at the end. That moment I realized: F1 is an independent, maybe strange but amazing world. 

Valtteri won for the first time in his life. I was happy for Mercedes but sad for Lewis finishing P4 and for Danny being out. I stood in the Paddock watching the teams packing and I felt like a very important part of my life is leaving me alone. That evening was frustrating. Later some more important things happened. Football cheated on me but I don't feel like telling this story here. 

I came back to Moscow, lost my job (not the best point of my life either) and decided to watch Spanish GP. Just in case. That moment was absolutely fatal. I loved loved loved F1. Since that GP I started watching every single one, decided on starting this blog and writing for motorsport media. It all worked and I couldn't be happier.

I am sure I have so many future opportunities like working full time and becoming a proper motorsport journalist in Paddock. It all awaits me in my closest future and, yes, now I can tell. I AM IN LOVE WITH MOTORSPORT AND I LIKE IT ❤️

"A man of his word" defeated by two Ferraris: Lewis is 14 points behind in the championship 🏎🚨🏁

Oh, hi! Have you noticed that mathematically we reached the middle of the season one race ago in Silverstone? But let's be honest - psychologically it happened just a few moments ago at Hungaroring. Congratulations to all Ferrari fans, by the way! That was an impressive one-two for red cars in Budapest. It is hard to accept but Ferraris were definetely way better on this track and even the special engine mode Lewis used to overtake Kimi didn’t help.

What I noticed first the qualifying was quite different from what we used to see lately. Mercedes was struggling a lot the whole weekend what I cannot say about Ferraris. Baricello's track record (not beaten for many years) was beaten multiple times firstly by Ferraris. Both Seb and Kimi had enourmos pace so Kimi was blaming himself after the race for the mistake in quali which cost him a lot. 

1. An ideal team player

As I said - congratulations to all Ferrari fans. If you know me you also know that I'm not a fan of those red cars even more than I am not a fan of Seb. I've been asked multiple times why. I couldn’t explain earlier but here at Hungaroring I came up with a concrete answer. I don’t like Seb as a Ferrari driver not for who he is or for how he behaves but mostly for the fact he COULD NOT be on top of the championship without team's help. Here I don’t mean the car, engineering, settings or whatever - here I mean team tactics, politics, strategy, priorities. Call it the way you like to. I am pretty sure there's some "rules" that do not let Kimi to fight against Seb (as it fortunately let Valtteri in Mercedes). 

Hungarian GP was a bright example of what I called "rules" here. Kimi was for sure faster than Seb and had no steer problems from the beginning which German was struggling a lot. He couldn’t even attack curbs and was slower in that case. Kimi asked the team multiple times if they can give him a chance to fight for more as long as he had better pace, younger tyres and a few more advantages. But no reaction came on the radio in that case so he had to stay behind Seb to protect him from what Mercedes could do using his steer weakness. We have no official information on Ferarri's contracts before the summer break. But what I personally think is that we can be sure now that Seb IS SO HAPPY with his current teammate that he will do literally anything to make Ferrari keep Kimi for as long as it is possible. 

2. A man of his word

Another happy man this weekend was Valtteri who unexpectedly (in my opinion) got his podium back at the last turn of the race. Lewis starting P4 had the better pace from the very beginning of the race so we all expected him to attack Valtteri to fight for the win. The main issue was huge radio struggles Mercedes had in the middle of the race so they just couldn’t manage the actions of their drivers. Lewis asked the team to let him in front or to let him attack Valterri right when I (as a Mercedes fan) expected him to do. Being honest, I was pretty impressed with team's decision to ask Valtteri to put Lewis in front BUT if the champion couldn’t overtake Kimi in like 10 laps of special engine mode Lewis had to give the position back. 

Knowing Lewis I could expect him to escape the last action and finish on the podium just in case. So I was super shocked but really happy when Lewis gave the position back at the very last turn making it clear that Max could not do anything to beat any of  Mercedes. Lewis accepted that it was hard for him but he is "a man of his word" and a team player. After the race Totto Wolff would say that it definitely WAS one of the hardest team decisions and they all hope it won't cost them the championship title. Anyways, huge respect to Mercedes and their team values which made all of us so proud.

3. Max hitting the relationship with Daniel

The other man who showed an incredible race and made it even more interesting was one and only Max Verstappen. Max was the one who made a huge start at Hungaroring and jumped from P5 to P3 immediately. Later on his teammate Daniel decided to fight for the position. Blocked left front made it all. Max hit Daniel and the honey-badger was out while Max got ten seconds penalty (unfair in my and Christian Horner's opinion) which for sure deprived him podium chances. 

Going back to a few latest GPs I'll remind you that we already had some huge team argues like between Esteban and Checo in Force India or Daniil and Carlos in Toro Rosso leading to race collisions and some serious consequences. Thinking of all those "team battles" personally I was really happy to see Red Bull drivers' friendship or bromance (if I can say). After Max and Daniel's collision - I was so not happy with the words Dani used to describe the situation as blame on "immaturity and youth". Daniel definitely wasn’t nice to Max' actions. I hoped that the situation won't go further so it didn’t. Max claimed his appologies - Daniel accepted. For me that was the worst highlight of the weekend which hopefully will not ever happen again.

4. Failure in action

Hungaroring is famous for it's slow and consistent corners which make pilots to be very physical and cars very sensitive. In spite of some strong expectations we saw a few good overtakes but we also we saw some unfortunate retirements. I have mentioned Daniel's already but the most painful for me was the one for Roman. Mechanics' mistake was fatal and cost them not only retirement but also 5000$ fee for driving an unsafe car. Really sorry for Haas. 

If you are close to F1 (which I am sure you are if you are reading this) you know about the breaking news happened on Saturday right before the quali. Felipe got really sick after both Friday sessions but doctors said he is still able to drive on Saturday so FP3 was taken by him also. Sadly Felipe felt really sick right after the session and former F1 driver and show presenter Paul Di Resta had to take place in the cockpit of the car he never drove before (I mean he drove cars 3,5 years ago, not in era of turbo engines). Incredibly he did really well in quali finishing P19 (not falling of 107% and not even P20)  and he was doing pretty well in the race too but the team decided to retire probably because they just wanted to save the car or change some of the elements without any penalties.

5. Happy birthday, Fernando

The last but not the least I probably should mention the special birthday gift which Fernando made for himself. Both McLaren drivers have finished in points. Sorry, you didn't know? Well, Fernando made it to the FASTEST RACE LAP at Hungaroring - 1.20.182. IT IS so impressive considering the fact that he drove McLaren Honda (you probably remember their engine problems) beating everyone and finishing P6 the next day after his birthday. 

Fernando made it even more interesting fighting with another spaniard Carlos pushing to the limit. Anyways, nice finish for both McLarens (even though Stoffel could probably do better). And what about the upcoming holidays - F1 made an interesting idea to picture Fernando next to the sea shore in his racing suit posing on a deckchair next to the real Fernando doing the same. 

6. Quali and other surprises

What's more Q3 was definetely quite surprising for me as long as we haven't seen any Force Indias or Williams there (since Williams updated their car it just became worse I must say) but we saw both McLarens and even one Toro Rosso of Carlos. By the way, Daniil got one more penalty point and three positions on the grid for blocking Lance which I just don’t feel like commenting. Blame on his team for sure. 

Nico keeps showing amazing results since Renault updated the car. The same wasn’t that common for McLaren and especially Stoffel who also did great in quali. Unfortunately Nico got the five-positions-gearbox-penalty so it wasn’t his best race comparing to what he could really do. His teammate Jolyon also received the new bottom but managed to crush twice on Friday which puts him under pressure even more remembering all the rumors and the fact that Kubica is driving Renault tests probably right now. Anyways, Jolyon wasn’t the one to provoke multiple red flags on Friday. It was Antonio Giovinazzi who managed to crush Kevin's car (depriving him two FP sessions) and also Pascal (no comments).

At the end of this thing I just wanna put the amazing media fight between Nico and Marcus. No words - just go and look!

When F1 returns from summer break I am sure we'll know a looooot about contracts and team movements. Stay tuned to my blog. By the way, FOUR weeks without F1 can only mean one thing - historical GPs in action :)

Onboard nightmare: FIA confirms "halo" for 2018 🏎💔✋🏻

Hello there. Are you a person who loves changes or you'd better stay more conservative? If it's new it's not necessarily bad - I used to say being quite conservative in many cases. Not in this one. 

On July, 19th FIA confirmed we are going to have Halo protection system for the championship 2018. Here's the part of the statement: "Following the unanimous agreement of the Strategy Group, in July 2016, to introduce additional frontal protection for Formula One and the repeated support from the drivers, the FIA confirms the introduction of the Halo for 2018. With the support of the teams, certain features of its design will be further enhanced."

Well, I really do think it looks ugly and I am not the only one. I really do think that most of the people somehow connected to F1 are 100% supporting opened cockpits and this "old" way of racing. But if everyone's against than who decides? Why the decision comes despite the total disapproval? Too many rhetorical questions in my mind. Let me shortly go through the options, its pros and cons and leave you to think about for a while (as long as we all have nothing to do but to accept).

Options:

I've been surthing through the internet after I read those terrific news in my twitter and found an interesting poll on motorsport.com. The options there were: accept Halo, accept shield, leave everything as it is, go back to aeroscreen, make cockpits closed and look for other options. So I tried to analyze  shortly what do I personally think of every option. 

For me aeroscreen and shield are quite alike as long as they have the same purpose in different form. Their pros and cons are also a lot alike: making it difficult to see through (blame on glares), getting easily dirty in bad weather conditions, probably some kind of aerodynamics thing (not an expert in this) and so on. Since I haven't been watching F1 for a long time I don't really know a lot about aeroscreen. But I do know about the shield since it has been tested in Silverstone last week and Seb defined it as inconvenient. It is not what I'd like to see but looks 100% better than Halo - that's for sure.

Closed cockpits WILL BE definitely a disaster as long as we know Formula 1 as a championship with opened wheels and opened cockpits. It might just ruin the whole spirit of this amazing sport. Looking for other options is still leading us to cockpit changes which I do feel are not going to be easy acceptable for a long time. Leaving everything as it is is probably THE BEST way which is not happening after that statement.

Talking about Halo, here I will try to give you some pros and obvious cons. 

Pros:

The only real pro which I personally see is the protection from big debris or strong impacts during the accident. That is true. I am not such a big expert but probably it doesn't influence aerodynamics as much as other tested protection systems do so doesn't make worst changes. I cannot come up with more pros but probably they exist.

Cons:

It is ugly. Onboard view is going to be kind of a nightmare. It does not protect from small debris. It has nothing to do with the wind and the downhill power on pilot (especially corners) which is good and bad at the same time. Probably it makes it way more difficult to see through. It also makes it more difficult to exit the car in some particular situations (accidents). 

Well, I can go on for ages. Unfortunately it is the fact now and we can only hope that F1 teams have the power to change the situation (since there we no accidents LATELY which showed that we need this kind of a system). 

The only point to add is the Lewis's words from 2016 he addressed to Halo possibility: "I hope that's not what they bring out, I really do. But if it is, ultimately it's the drivers' protection so we should have a choice individually - I should be able to decide whether to put that on my car. It wouldn't be something I'd choose. I like it the way it is now - when I get in the car I know there's a certain risk. Safety is a very important issue for sure, but there are risks that we take and you have to decide how much of a risk you are going to take. I'd rather drive without it and risk it." Thanks, Lewis!

I am confused, I am embarrassed and I am frustrated. I am also sure you feel the same right now but I'd love to let me know what you think on Halo in any of my social media or e-mail. This blogpost is not a statement but more of a discussion I wrote being emotionally punched by FIA. Thanks for reading though!

Last lap drama in Silverstone: Mercedes beats Ferrari 🏎😳🏁

Oh my God! First of all, congratulations to all Mercedes and especially Lewis fans - that was absolutely amazing. I could be only happier if Max would finally get the podium but we got what we got. Silverstone is by far my favorite track in F1 championship which is making me even sadder on the fact that GP-2019 is going to be the last one due to financial struggles (should I write a post on this?). Here we got the fastest corners where it reaches over 5.2G downhill power (if I am not mistaken in its name). 

And yes, this weekend we got the new track record from Lewis - 1.30.621. Amazing Lewis! Leading from the very beginning of the race and being on top during the whole distance was absolutely stunning. The only wrong moment (in my opinion) was the accident after Valtteri pitted and Lewis refused to let him in front to gain pace for both of them but said "I will drive him with me". I would be probably crazy if they lost their leadership because of what Lewis did but all ended up really well. 

1. From sinner to hero

As you probably remember Friday before the British Grand Prix was dedicated to the amazing F1 show in the center of London. All teams participated except one driver - one and only Lewis Hamilton. Yes, the pilot who has most love in GB decided to keep focusing on the upcoming race and title fight which meant that he took a few days off and skipped the event. Critics never ended. Lewis got a BILLION questions during the press-conference on why he didn't come to the event. The talks were all about him and his fans treatment. 

If you ask me what I really do think on that I'd say he has the right. He is one of the most famous drivers and he does a lot (sometimes not in front of the cameras), so it was his decision which he has the right to. 

Anyways he became kind of a sinner to everyone but I don't think he lost fans love. What happened next you should remember. Pole position (67th in his career and 5th in Silverstone which means he has equaled Jim Clark and is about to beat the record completing the same result next year), race win, new track record, new quali time record (1.26.600) and crowd surfing while two Finns patiently waiting in the press-conference :) Hero? I must say yes.

2. Mercedes got lucky enough

Let me begin from the very end of the race. What was that? I mean that tyre-drama two laps before finish. That was absolutely epic. Post-race reports keep saying Kimi and Seb had different type of tyre-issues but that looked really crazy. Pirelli started the investigation and I must say it is highly interesting to know what happened and brought such bad luck to both Ferrari drivers and lots of very good luck to Mercedes.

Being honest, I did not believe that Valtteri had a chance for the podium being almost three seconds behind two laps before finish, starting P9 after his five-place penalty (he qualified P4 which was strange since he was leading FP's whole Friday). Unless this absolutely unexpected problem happened and Kimi lost his pace immediately. I am pretty surprised that he still drove himself to the podium struggling so much.

Ferrari confirmed that those tyre-issues caught them by surprise. But what is most strange about that all is that the SAME problem with the SAME wheel had happened not only to both Ferrraris but also to Red Bull's Max. We saw Kimi quite frustrated on the podium, not the most emotional man was definitely sad about finishing third and not at least second (should we talk about the possible win here? Probably not). His teammate and the championship leader (1 point over Lewis - not a lot) Seb was even more unlucky having a puncture and urgently pitting which led to finishing P7 - not good for him at all.

3. Pit-stop lost for Verstappen

Talking about Max, I am pretty sure that he lost the podium during his first pit-stop. Yes, he probably could stay longer when all those happened to Seb and Kimi and still have a chance for the podium. But I do really believe that he could have the momentum if his first pit-stop would be one second faster. Yes, maybe it was that one second when he lost his position. Of course the team and Max himself explained that there was real need in this and they could not do better. But I still think they could. 

As long as Max did a great start and was defending so strongly against Seb before his pit-stop he surely had a chance. By the way, Christian Horner keeps confirming that both his drivers are about to stay in Red Bull for the next season - reminding you all "just in case" as he said.

4. Amazing honey-badger

Another Red Bull driver on the contrary had a lot of fun overtaking cars as he claimed. Starting P19 having gearbox five-place penalty and super frustrated quali (not even finishing Q1 blame on some technical problems the car had) Daniel finished the race P5. He could even start the race P20 if retired Alonso didn't get more penalty positions on the grid - I mean 30.  

Well, what Daniel did was kind of obvious for me because Red Bull definitely has a better car than many other teams so Daniel was about to fight against Force India, Williams, Renault, etc.- it is not easy but it is way easier comparing to what Valtteri did fighting against Red Bull and Ferrari. Anyways, Daniel finished P5 which is cool and was voted the driver of the day which I do feel is great cause my heart was choosing between him and Valtterri that time. 

5. Sainz vs Kvyat - to be continued

Toro Rosso got lots of bad luck this weekend and their drivers are the only ones to blame. Who crushed in this race again, do you have any guess? Absolutely yes! Daniil and Carlos, ladies and gentlemen. Two teammates who cannot stop fighting against each other. Even situation between Force India's Esteban and Checo became way smoother since they crushed in Baku. 

What I really DO think is that they both are kind of wrong (I mean a little bit embarrassing, of course). Anyways, Daniil keeps saying it wasn’t his fault and Carlos had hit him. Carlos keeps saying it WAS Daniil's fault as long as he crushed into him. In my Spielberg post I wrote: "they'd better behave smarter". Unfortunately they do not read my blog.

6. McLaren on top

Fernando made it possible, probably not in Q3 or the race where he had to retire again due to engine issue. He made it possible at least in Q1 pitting at the very end and being one second away not starting the fast lap on slicks at all but he DID it! Round of applause and lots of screenshots!

Talking about Q1 it definitely was quite chaotic as long as the start of the session was rainy enough to go for green tyres and the end of Q1 was all about changing into slicks and improve the time. By the way, the interesting fact of QUALI which I feel like mentioning here was Kimi. He showed the better time than Seb - that was a good kind of answer to the criticism he got from team management lately. 

7. One lap less - Palmer off

This time we got 51 laps instead of 52 and the reason to that kind of change was Joylion who got a technical problem which didn't let him not only finish the race but even start it. Probably that didn’t make a lot of difference as long as three cars had to pit one more time at the very end. Rumors about Joylion being close to replacing by Kubica, Sainz, Alonso or whoever keep surrounding him and this situation did not help at all.

The finish itself was quite not that predictable as long as we got Hulkenberg P6 and Massa only P10 instead of what we used to see from Williams lately. Grosjean finishing P13 was quite unhappy with the fact that his incident with Lewis took no further action "in case that Lewis is fighting for the title" as he claimed.

Silverstone forecast promised the rain to mix the fight but it ended up not happening which probably was OK for most of the grid. Race itself showed us so much and made the fight for the title waaay more interesting since Lewis is just one point behind Seb and twenty three above Valtteri.

Personally I can't wait till we see the next half of the season since Hungary 'cause literally EVERYTHING can happen here! See you in less than two weeks, amazing F1 lovers.

Mixed feelings in Spielberg: Valtteri drives himself into the champions race 🇫🇮🚀🏁

Greetings to all Formula 1 lovers, I just wanted you to know how much I missed writing racing blogs. Quite a lot happened, nah? But we don’t have too much time to think as long as Silverstone's coming up this week (literally in 4 days). So lets go right into what happened in Spielberg.

Overall the race itself was better than personally I expected it to be. It has even raised some new questions and put some new struggles in front of the pilots, teams and fans.

1. We are NOT playing bowling, man

A little bit epic start of the race - that is what happened actually. Probably I am not the only one who is still trying to figure out what has happened in the middle of the grid when Daniil hit Fernando (trying to overtake or as he claimed sliding as long as his wheels were locked) and then they also hit poor Max whose race was over after he couldn't manage a proper start struggling with his grid. Alonso would say on the radio: "They cannot play bowling". Fernando was frustrated as he had the chance not to struggle with technical problems for the first time in God knows how many races and was out as well as was Max. 

The fact that Daniil got 2 points (making it up to 7 in general as well as his teammate Carlos) makes it more possible that there WAS an actual mistake in his actions. So the blame is on him in some case but the team commented this situation as "normal racing accident". Anyways it doesn’t help the people who left the race as well as it doesn’t help the strange situation in Toro Rosso. Let me clarify what I am actually talking of. 

2. Sainz against Toro Rosso in "media war"

If you are a F1 follower you probably have heard about Carlos' situatuion evolving the whole weekend. Spaniard literally claimed that it is unlikely for him to stay at Toro Rosso for the next year and he is 100% aimed to go to the main team (where both drivers have lasting contracts until no one is going to leave the team for the better - here I mean Max and the rumors about him replacing Kimi in Ferrari). If not - Carlos is about to leave. The reaction of both Toro Rosso and Red Bull head management was quite expectable as long as Dr. Helmut Marco, Christian Horner and Franz Tost made it clear that the team program gave EVERYTHING to Carlos. He also has an activated contract for the next season already. After that Carlos became smarter and explained the misunderstanding of his words. But still the start to the "media war" has been given.

The only thing I feel like adding is that both Kvyat and Sainz haven't shown anything tremendous this season and they both keep failing a lot in the races so they'd better to be more patient not to be fired from Formula 1 team at all.

3. Bottas drives himself into the champions race

Following the development of the race I feel like the most important thing was the fact that Valtteri held the leadership throughout almost the whole race and didn't let Ferrari to overtake him even at the very end when it was quite dangerous for him with Seb in DRS-zone. A few same situations happened in the middle of the grid (where Lewis as well tried to fight it out to the podium against Daniel) but it was just a question of bigger points for middle-teams. 

Valtteri was voted the driver of the day which I think (not as a Mercedes fan but as a neutral author) is quite justly. Valtteri's not only drove himself to the second career win here in Austria (4th win in 4 races by Mercedes at Red Bull Ring) but also to the champions race where he is 15 points behind Lewis and 35 points behind Seb now. Actually it is not that bad since it was just the 9th race of the season and so many things are still possible to happen. 

4. Pole jump-start

All the talks about the Valtteri's jump-start from the pole position were ridiculous. The motorsport rules have nothing about the times when drivers should react after the lights were off. I mean there's nothing fixed, so maybe 0,2 sec is too little but definitely not too early anyways. So what are people talking about now?

As a big Lewis fan I was also quite disappointed after he got five place gearbox penalty this weekend which made almost obvious he wasn’t about to win but could have fought for better points comparing to Seb. Suddenly after the race itself 1/3 of my sympathies went to Valtteri remembering how amazing he is as a person and as a driver. 

By the way, the last thing we can still hope is Mercedes being patient in this championship race and not depriving Valtteri the chance of getting the title. Well, here I need to mention that I LOVES Lewis' after-race reaction (especially considering his inappropriate request in Baku).

5. Red Bull struggle: Max retired for the 5th time in 7 races while Daniel collecting the trophies

The most controversial feelings (as well as Valtteri win and Lewis "loss" for Mercedes) caused me "win" and loss of Red Bull drivers. Seeing Max retiring almost every race is painful not because he is a cute boy from Netherlands but because he IS a really good and fast driver. He is the one of those who has this potential to fight for podiums and wins (especially considering the fact that Red Bull has a nice car with probably not the best engine this year). 

You probably can tell how frustrated Dr. Marco was since Max is considered as his favorite driver and most of the time the retirement is NOT pilot's fault but technical stuff. Red Bull keeps gaining points thanks to Daniel. He (after brake problem retirement in Sochi which was 4th race of the year) keeps finishing on podiums and even won the whole thing in Baku. There must be a lot of mixed emotions inside the team in that case. I just hope they will solve the problem if team really wants to keep Max for the next season.

6. Tyres on the limit

Being honest it was my first race where I saw tyres working on their limit (and yes, I've seen not that many GPs). Before the race I thought it was going to be two pit-stops race (not the biggest expert in this, sorry). 

At the end of the race I saw that Lewis was pushing literally everything from his Ultra Softs and Valtteri was doing the same with his Super Softs. I cannot tell that this race has been a race of "tyre strategy" in general. Probably. The only fenomenal fact F1 experts we mostly talking about was Lewis making it on SS in quali so he had a different strategy. Here I should mention that he had this 5-place pen on the grid so he knew he wasn’t fighting for the speed at this point but for the consistancy. 

Actually in the end I was pretty sure someone would go for the second pit (I mean leaders) but it was too dangerous so we got what we got. Looking at the tyre strategy graphics I was only impressed how different was Felipe's decision as long as the whole grid used almost the same strategy in different variants.

7. No rain despite the expectations in Spielberg 

I mean the rain happened just after the race. However, the forecast before the race showed 50% chance of rain. In that case some of the drivers were probably kind of hoping on the wet track to help them slide into bigger points while others were absolutely against this possibility as long as it might have ruined their better results. 

Anyways, it didn't end up raining so far we saw some AMAZING times. Michael Schumacher's record from 2004 was beaten numerous times and Lewis was the fastest man on Sunday even though he didn't drive himself to the podium. Remember the new record, everyone: 1.07.411!

Some other race moments I would love to mention to end up my blogpost are the emotions: Seb being honestly frustrated with his second place. Valtteri refusing drinking from Daniel's shoe and asking him: "are you laughing?" Kimi being in a conflict with Ferrari management and saying he IS doing everything he can. Lewis calling his  result  mediocre but being nice to what Valtteri did. I bud really liked all this honesty we saw.

We haven't seen anything extraordinary from Force India drivers that time even after them talking a lot on each other (which I am going to write the next post on). We saw good pace and good result from Roman and Haas (Kevin retired unfortunately) as long as they kept struggling the grid thing throughout the weekend. We saw some driver skills proofs from Felipe and Lance finishing in top-10 since Williams managed to qualify in the 1st segment. Not to mention yellow flags in the end of Q3 which helped Valtteri to get the pole position and made it impossible for Lewis, Max, Seb and others to improve.

Not a bad race, guys. I can't wait to see what will happened in GB. See you very soon!

Becoming an anti-hero: is Vettel sorry? 🤔❓🏎

Note: the author of this post is 100% neutral to Seb himself.

First of all: question. Have you noticed what Formula 1 fans have been talking about for last months? Sebastian Vettel winning Monaco due to team tactics over Kimi. Sebastian Vettel becoming a driver of the day finishing fifth in Canada. Sebastian Vettel hitting Lewis Hamilton in Azerbaijan. Kind of anti-hero tendency, isn't it? 

I have been writing a whole article on what has happened in Monaco, so let me remain kind of silent in this case or go read it. I didn't say too much on Seb in Montreal as long as I decided that there was nothing too sensational. I just really didn't like the choice of him as the best driver since there were so many good performances from other pilots, especially young ones. But let me talk about this NOT AN ACCIDENT in Baku.

Look what I wrote in my post about the race: "Yes, Lewis probably braked too quick so Seb clashed into him. Was that an accident? I suppose YES. What happened next? Seb went too emotional and hit Lewis. Did he do this on purpose? I am sure that YES. Was that all just emotions? Absolutely YES. He got his penalty and lost the leadership in the race, potential podium, some points. Was the penalty enough? I have no idea, it's all up to jury. Should he said he was at least sorry for unnecessary action? I suppose YES. But he didn't. Why? We'd better ask him." I do really think so. Still. But the situation got the development. 

FIA decided that they need some kind of a further investigation. And they even invited Seb to the headquarters so here what happened. The date of FIA hearing has been set and it was 3rd of July, Vettel's 30th birthday. Interesting, no? Throughout the day we had some FAKE FIA press releases which said there will be further punishment so we already got some public reaction (quite controversial).  

But later on journalists got the official document from FIA officer that said: "Sebastian Vettel extended his sincere apologies to the FIA and the wider motor sport family. He additionally committed to devote personal time over the next 12 months to educational activities across a variety of FIA championships and events, including in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, the FIA Formula 3 European Championship, at an FIA Formula 4 Championship to be defined and at the FIA Stewards’ seminar. Due to this incident, President Jean Todt instructed that no road safety activities should be endorsed by Sebastian Vettel until the end of this year.

The FIA notes this commitment, the personal apology made by Sebastian Vettel and his pledge to make that apology public. The FIA also notes that Scuderia Ferrari is aligned with the values and objectives of the FIA.

In light of these developments, FIA President Jean Todt decided that on this occasion the matter should be closed."

Seb admitted his full responsibility. There are his words published in his website after the hearing where he admitted he is sorry for what has happened, he defined he loves this sport and he is not going to ruin its reputation for future generations. He also agreed to volunteer to help educate young racing drivers at events this year, with the FIA warning him that any repeat of what happened in Baku will prompt an International Tribunal hearing.

But as it was mentioned a few times in different media there's too much mysterious in that very situation. Not just the appologies coming after the decision but also the presence of only Ferrari side at the meeting with no Hamilton, no Mercedes side. Even the decision itself looked a little strange as long as that was not the first time when Seb's overreacted. Yes, on one hand it is dangerous for FIA that his example might give drivers the mutual permission to do crazy things and then just appologies. On the other hand who knows for how long it would take FIA to go further. And moreover, Seb has 10 sec stop-and-go penalty which is also a lot and further punishment might do harm to the Grand Prix reputation in general. Black flag as an option in Baku? I don't know and personally I don't see the reason to talk about past. Anyways the whole thing is up to the organization now and we can only guess on the possible reasons.

Again the clash and its consequences could not be unnoticed so here are some reasons why personally I think Seb is becoming more and more a kind of an anti-hero for the F1 world.

1. Insincerity

After the whole Baku situation I have defined  a few points of view of journalists and F1 fans who were absolutely sure that the apologies for what Seb did in Baku should have come before FIA statement and even before they announced the investigation itself. 

That is what I absolutely agree with. Here I must admit that I am more of a kind of person who understands the arrogance and other bad human nature things which not let Seb to say sorry right after the race. It's human nature, yes and unfortunately it is quite normal.

2. Kimi's abuser

Ferrari itself never announced the existence of team strategy. But now, after eight races probably EVERYONE understands that Seb is fighting for the title and team would always put him in front of Kimi as they might do in Monaco (no statement again). Sadly, unfortunately, undeniable.

3. Bad example

As long as FIA hearing did nothing but made Seb to say sorry after all, this might serve as a bad example for not only F1 drivers but also for the whole young generation. Yes, right now I am talking about the position where pilots could not only do crazy moves and expect no punishment but where they could be inspired to be that kind of "bad boys". Like in movies but on track. Not a proper inspiration, right?

4. Lewis' opponent

Huge LH44 team is 100% against Seb right now buttttt. Even if you are quite neutral to Lewis and Mercedes you probably see all those actions Ferrari and Seb use to overpass Lewis in championship as long as he MOSTLY is just racing (I do remember some incidents but they had no such a resonance, however, Mercedes admits team strategy clearly). Sympathy goes not to Seb. Unfortunately.

Probably there might be some more reasons but I don't really want to look like Seb's hater. So here I must say that I am over this situation now. Hopefully you too!