Probably everyone knows about the first corner incident with Bottas late braking, shunting Norris who had made a blinder of a start, into Verstappen, then bouncing across to take out Perez as well. Both Red Bulls effectively out, but other than being Bottas' misjudgement on the damp track, presumably nothing intentional.
Then a red flag to clear the track, during which Verstappen's Red Bull repaired 90%, and everyone starting again on Intermediates I think, but during the formation lap for the restart, track was pretty dry, so everybody pulled back into the pits to change to dry tyres and restart from pit lane. Everybody that is except for Hamilton who was at the front so wasn't aware what others were doing, and apparently there is no radio contact allowed on the first lap. So he lines up on the grid by himself, one car on the grid, is that a first? He then comes in after first lap for tyres which puts him to the back of the field.
In the meantime, with the previous first corner shemozzle, Ocon and Vettel find themselves at the front of the field and stay there until the end.
Hamilton pulls through the field into 3rd with a bit of defensive driving by Alonso probably slowing his advance.
We noted getting out of the car and going to the podium, Hamilton looked like he was going to collapse, but nobody seemed to care. Where was his blond floozy? - probably not allowed into the area I guess. I thought he was going to sit down at the podium, he looked terrible. (I heard later that he said he was still recovering from his bout of Covid back about the end of last year).
I was pretty disappointed to see Vettel was disqualified for not having enough fuel remaining for the post-race testing - he ran out of fuel on the lap after the finish. Even I, as a former scrutineer, don't see the point of disqualification after finishing a GP in 2nd place, how many times has that (running out of fuel) happened in the history of GP?
Back to Qualifying - Lewis doesn't seem to think he was a problem at the end of the final qualifier, going out just in front of the Red Bulls, doing a super slow out lap (obviously just within the lap time limit), allowing Max to cross in time but Perez didn't cross in time to record a lap. No wonder he got booed by the crowd after qualifying.
I think we are back in a time of super-competitiveness between 2 drivers, Lewis and Max. And they have no qualms in holding their perceived line and rights, to the extent of crashing rather that avoiding. I'll include M.Schumacher and Senna in previous drivers with the same aggression, to which they blindly excuse with "Oh, I didn't know he was there" - hmmm.
It was an interesting weekend. I was quite surprised to hear them say that Hungary is now the 3rd oldest continually running GP track, besides Monaco and somewhere else. Feels like a new track to me, and I remember it opening, shows my age.
Cheers.
Then a red flag to clear the track, during which Verstappen's Red Bull repaired 90%, and everyone starting again on Intermediates I think, but during the formation lap for the restart, track was pretty dry, so everybody pulled back into the pits to change to dry tyres and restart from pit lane. Everybody that is except for Hamilton who was at the front so wasn't aware what others were doing, and apparently there is no radio contact allowed on the first lap. So he lines up on the grid by himself, one car on the grid, is that a first? He then comes in after first lap for tyres which puts him to the back of the field.
In the meantime, with the previous first corner shemozzle, Ocon and Vettel find themselves at the front of the field and stay there until the end.
Hamilton pulls through the field into 3rd with a bit of defensive driving by Alonso probably slowing his advance.
We noted getting out of the car and going to the podium, Hamilton looked like he was going to collapse, but nobody seemed to care. Where was his blond floozy? - probably not allowed into the area I guess. I thought he was going to sit down at the podium, he looked terrible. (I heard later that he said he was still recovering from his bout of Covid back about the end of last year).
I was pretty disappointed to see Vettel was disqualified for not having enough fuel remaining for the post-race testing - he ran out of fuel on the lap after the finish. Even I, as a former scrutineer, don't see the point of disqualification after finishing a GP in 2nd place, how many times has that (running out of fuel) happened in the history of GP?
Back to Qualifying - Lewis doesn't seem to think he was a problem at the end of the final qualifier, going out just in front of the Red Bulls, doing a super slow out lap (obviously just within the lap time limit), allowing Max to cross in time but Perez didn't cross in time to record a lap. No wonder he got booed by the crowd after qualifying.
I think we are back in a time of super-competitiveness between 2 drivers, Lewis and Max. And they have no qualms in holding their perceived line and rights, to the extent of crashing rather that avoiding. I'll include M.Schumacher and Senna in previous drivers with the same aggression, to which they blindly excuse with "Oh, I didn't know he was there" - hmmm.
It was an interesting weekend. I was quite surprised to hear them say that Hungary is now the 3rd oldest continually running GP track, besides Monaco and somewhere else. Feels like a new track to me, and I remember it opening, shows my age.
Cheers.
