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  • Australian Grand Prix

    Image obtained from F1.com

    F1 is back baby!

    The 2025 season got under way this past weekend with Australia raising the curtain, something that they haven’t done for several years.

    With Albert Park being quite a niche circuit, it is still difficult really to get a real feel of the pecking order, I don’t think we will really find out the complete order for a couple of races. I think we can all agree that Haas seem to be struggling, both cars scored points last year, this year they finished last.

    The changeable conditions caught out several drivers both rookies and experienced alike, it added a bit of intrigue to the race however it also made it a bit slow and stuttery. An F1 car is never designed to run in the wet it is however clear that with the torque and power the cars have, once they go in the wet it’s very hard to keep it under control. This may well get worse next season with more electrical power being applied.

    A race of crashes and a tough weekend for the rookies

    In a weekend of crashes, it was the rookies that had the lion’s share of them. Albert Park is a tough street circuit and will punish you if you make a mistake. It’s not an easy circuit to master for a green driver and I am sure they would have much preferred Bahrain as the first race of the season.

    Bearman at least kept his crashes to practice, however come qualifying when his gear box failed, one must assume it was a knock on from the shunt in practice. Antonelli damaged the underside of his car during Q1 and compromised himself which meant he couldn’t progress any further.

    Hadjar crashed on the formation lap before Jack Doohan and Bortoletto crashed and Lawson almost with a carbon copy of Hadjar also crashed out. Hadjar was quite dismayed and embarrassed about what happened, however the fact that the conditions also caught out Sainz behind the safety car and Alonso as well as Lawson in a similar fashion, I think he will take some solace from.

    McLaren lead the way

    I know I said it’s hard to call the order after the first race, there were some hints that McLaren were possibly hiding some pace. Firstly, the gap in qualifying was larger than what I thought it would be. It was quite close in Q1 & Q2 then the run on the new softs in Q3 was almost half a second quicker than the Red Bull. The other tell tail sign that the car has significant performance was during the first stage of the race on the intermediate tyres. Verstappen seemed to be keeping up well, made a mistake and he was gone. His tyres seemed to be shot, whilst both McLarens scampered off into the distance. The biggest hint was when everyone had pitted for dry tyres, they both pitted and went onto the hard compound with Verstappen on the medium. Normally you would expect McLaren to be at a disadvantage here with the conditions at the time and the fact that the harder tyre is slower to warm up. I expected Verstappen to put them under pressure and potentially pass them, however the opposite happened, and both cars again started to pull away.

    Finally, Piastri managed to go from 13th to 9th, obviously he was helped by unlapping himself during the safety car, however he showed great pace and pulled off a couple of fantastic overtakes without really looking like he was throwing the car about.

    Williams best of the midfield?

    Williams showed well all weekend and although you shouldn’t read too much into practice it was no surprise to me when the qualified well. I think Williams are going to finally move forward this year with two drivers that can be competitive and know how to score points. Albon finished 4th thanks to a penalty for Antonelli, which would later be rescinded dropping Albon back to 5th. It meant that had he scored almost as many points in the first race as he managed all season last year. The only negative to come out the weekend was Sainz’s crash behind the safety car, a bit embarrassing but without that crash they were on for a good points haul. Hopefully the pace in the car isn’t a one off and they can carry on as they started.

    Out for a Stroll

    I Just wanted to add that Lance Stroll quietly went about his weekend and ended up getting a positive result for Aston Martin. He may have benefited from some of the accidents however, he kept his nose clean and scored some solid points.

    Results

    1stLando Norris11thPierre Gasly
    2ndMax Verstappen12thYuki Tsunoda
    3rfGeorge Russell13thEstaban Ocon
    4thKimi Antonelli14thOliver Bearman
    5thAlex AlbonDNFLiam Lawson
    6thLance StrollDNFGabriel Bortoleto
    7thNico HulkenbergDNFFernando Alonso
    8thCharles LeclercDNFCarlos Sainz
    9thOscar PiastriDNFJack Doohan
    10thLewis HamiltonDNSIsack Hadjar

    Race Rating: 6/10

    What’s next?

    It’s been a long time since we had the first race of the season and then had to wait 6 weeks for the next race. The teams have a few days to turn round and get to China. Could be an interesting race, it’s a proper circuit and we may see some more “normal” running orders. Also, those that suffered crash damage could be short on spares with such a quick turnaround. One thing though is the Chinese Grand Prix can produce some entertaining races.

    Let me know what you think below:

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  • 2024 Season Review – Red Bull

    Downfall of the Champions

    It was a tough season for Red Bull, they went from being reigning champions to the third best team. You could however say that was largely down to the fact they only had Verstappen scoring the lion’s share of the points. Initially the team picked up where they left off in 2023, scoring a 1-2 in the first two races. It left everyone feeling that we were in for another season of RB and Verstappen domination. In the first five races Verstappen won four and Checo finished on the podium four times. By the time we got to Miami things for Checo at least started to unravel, he finished third in round five (China) and would not finish on the podium again. Verstappen would continue to challenge at the front and retain his crown as World Champion and barring an uncharacteristic Red Bull mechanical retirement in Australia, his worst finish was 6th. They took a “bold” and “aggressive” approach to their car, but it was a tricky one to drive and their development direction did not work and, in some instances, made the cars worse. Verstappen was clearly able to adapt to the car better than Checo underlining the raw talent that he has.

    The Team

    Obviously, the main talking point was the allegations that surfaced about Christian Horner and his inappropriate behaviour. The allegations came out before the start of the season, but it would be months before the talk died down. During that period, you had all sorts of people chipping in. Helmut Markko was sticking the knife in and then Jos Verstappen was also sticking his oar in. For the latter its very much a case of those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. At the end of the day, he’s the father of the driver, it has nothing to do with him what goes on in the team, keep your beak out and opinions to yourself.

    Clearly however it was a power struggle between Markko and Horner, with the former clearly wanting control of the team. Horner however managed to ride out the controversy and remains as Team Principle.

    A couple of massive changes for Red Bull. Firstly, long-standing Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey announced at the Miami Grand Prix that he would be leaving Red Bull and seeking pastures new for 2025. This also seemed to start the downfall of RB’s dominance. Naturally after he announced his future departure, his involvement with the race team became minimal and as a result they struggled with the development of the car and wind tunnel correlation not matching what was happening on track.

    Later in the season Red Bull would announce the departure of equally long-standing Sporting Director, Jonathan Wheatley. He was placed on gardening leave later in 2024 and announced that he would be joining Audi for 2026 as Team Principle.

    The Drivers

    Verstappen won the Drivers’ Championship for the fourth consecutive year, as mentioned earlier he showcased his underlying talent by dragging performances out of a car that really was not a front running car. There were plenty of controversy with him along the way as you expect. He is a hard racer and sometimes I think he crosses the line of what is fair, and it does seem that sometimes his attitude is “if try to come past me we will either crash or you will back down”. Personally, I think he goes too far sometimes and when it happens to him, he cries to the team and tries to get others a penalty, which on occasions he has done successfully. When coming up against Verstappen, you know what he’d like, you must be prepared to get your elbows out and get aggressive. If you’re too nice you will come off worse.

    2024 looks like it could be the last time we see Sergio Perez. He started the season off strongly and it rapidly went from bad to worse. He was awarded with a new contract in Canada and RB had hoped this would give him some confidence to turn his season round and unfortunately it seems like it had the opposite effect. You could argue that his performances were more in line to where the cars performance was, but you cannot deny one of the main reasons RB went from champions to third is because Perez couldn’t drag the performance out of the car. At the end of the season his contract was terminated. He went out of the sport with a bang, but not in a good way it was the bang of a collision with Bottas in the final race which could be his final appearance in the sport.

    For 2025….

    Liam Lawson is the driver to replace Perez. For me the jury is still out on this young Kiwi, I am not sure he has proven he deserves that second seat, but he appears to be the chosen one so we will see how he performs. The team will be looking to challenging at the front of the grid again after failing to win the constructors.

    2024 Season Rating 7/10

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  • F1 Testing Day 1

    The 2025 F1 Season officially started yesterday with the first of three days of testing in Bahrain

    The first day saw all drivers take part and one of the key things to note, was reliability. None of the teams seemed to suffer any major reliability issues that caused them to lose any significant time, and most teams managed a good number of laps.

    HaaS160
    VCARB154
    Mercedes148
    Ferrari141
    Alpine140
    Red Bull132
    Williams131
    Mclaren118
    Kick114
    Aston Martin88

    McLaren will obviously take the headline for topping the session, but we all know that testing means nothing, and we won’t know the true order until we get to Australia. However, the car does look good. From the onboards there isn’t much wheel spin, and it seems very planted through the corners.

    McLaren, unlike some of the other teams have not made any radical changes, Zak Brown has said that whilst it looks the same as last year there are plenty of new innovations on the car that have not been seen, and rumour has it that they have gained 4 tenths on last year’s car. The other three teams at the front have all tried something different this year, Ferrari have changed their suspension layout, Red Bull have re-designed the front of the car to improve their understeer issues and Mercedes are trying something different, which they are trying to keep under wraps.

    The rest of the field look quite close again. Alpine are certainly having a better start to testing than they were this time last year which is positive. Aston Martin, although completing the lowest number of laps look solid and I would say so far, the car looks better than last season. The remaining teams all look like they have made improvements on this time last season but what the order will be is hard to guess

    Unusually there were no red flags brought out by cars stopped on track, however there was a lengthy stop after the power to the circuit was lost which was slightly embarrassing. As a result, the session was extended so the teams could recuperate the lost running time, and all the rookies got through the session without issues save for the odd spin and running wide at some corners.

    This is how the first day ended.

    1) Lando Norris, McLaren, 1:30.430, 52 laps

    2) George Russell, Mercedes, 1:30.587, 70 laps

    3) Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 1:30.674, 74 laps

    4) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 1:30.878, 71 laps

    5) Carlos Sainz, Williams, 1:30.955, 68 laps

    6) Pierre Gasly, Alpine, 1:31.353, 72 laps

    7) Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, 1:31.428, 78 laps

    8) Liam Lawson, Red Bull, 1:31.560, 58 laps

    9) Alex Albon, Williams 1:31.573, 63 laps

    10) Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls, 1:31.610, 78 laps

    11) Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls, 1:31.631, 76 laps

    12) Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber, 1:31.690, 59 laps

    13) Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, 1:31.834, 70 laps

    14) Jack Doohan, Alpine 1:31.841, 68 laps

    15) Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin, 1:31.874, 46 laps

    16) Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, 1:31.949, 42 laps

    17) Oscar Piastri, McLaren, 1:32.084, 66 laps

    18) Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber, 1:32.169, 55 laps

    19) Esteban Ocon, Haas, 1:33.600, 88 laps

    20) Oliver Bearman, Haas, 1:35.522, 72 laps

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  • F1 75 Live Event

    Jack Whitehall presented the F1 75 event at the O2 in London. During the event to celebrate 75 years of Formula 1, the teams were unveiling their liveries for the upcoming season.

    The event was opened by MGK, who is famous in the F1 world for snubbing Martin Brundle a couple of years ago on the grid for the Brazilian Grand Prix. That weekend it was also reported that MGK had left the race before it had even reached half distance. For me, it shows how far away from F1 is from fans and what they want. At an event celebrating F1, surely you want people that are fans of F1? MGK doesn’t really strike me as an F1 fan.

    What followed the opening performance was an evening of some cringey uncomfortable interviews and innuendos about Aston Martins Mike Krack. There we’re some lighter moments however when Jack Whitehall asked Gordon Ramsay about the ban on swearing on team radio.

    “These athletes push themselves to the extreme, so sometimes when it comes out, let them be real, let it go. Come on. They’re risking their life every time, traveling over 200 Miles per hour. So, if the s*** hits the fan..”

    Gordon Ramsay

    The latter part of the comment caused Whitehall’s microphone to mysteriously go off and we didn’t hear what else was said.

    The other thing I didn’t like was the booing. With its pandering to drama, F1 has attracted a whole new fan base to the sport and some of them like to boo. Having been a fan of F1 since 98, watching through the Schumacher dominance and controversies, I never heard regular booing until the last 10 years. Obviously, the booing was mainly reserved for Verstappen and Christian Horner, for me real F1 fans have a respect for all drivers for what they do and what some of them have achieved. If you want to boo, go back to the football terraces because it does not belong in F1. Whilst F1 drivers may not be as gladiatorial as some of their predecessors, they still should be respected. I will add to this that the FIA also got booed which did make me laugh, but it serves them right for trying to control everything.

    One thing I did find interesting was a quick shot of Christian and Gerri Horner at the table, with someone sat in-between them.

    Looking at the liveries, they were revealed in championship order starting from 10th onwards. VCARB won the evening for me and Red Bull was the worst. Although I do like the Red Bull livery, it is absolutely the same as it always is. I was expecting more teams to have more unpainted black carbon fibre so they can save a couple of grams in weight, but most cars seemed to be well covered in paint. Here is my rank of best to worst livery of the evening.

    1. VCARB
    2. McLaren
    3. Williams
    4. Ferrari
    5. Mercedes
    6. Aston Martin
    7. Haas
    8. Stake
    9. Alpine
    10. Red Bull

    It was good to see Hamilton in Ferrari red and I am really looking forward to seeing how he does. I hope F1 doesn’t make this an annual event, it’s a bit much really for a livery reveal. We have seen a couple of the new cars showcased from the teams on their preseason filming days, but the majority of the new cars won’t be shown until we get to testing next week.

    Please let me know what you think in the comments.

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  • Happy New Year

    A Round Up Of The Gossip

    I hope if you are reading this you had a good Christmas and New Year and took the time to recharge and indulge. Since my last post there has been a few items of gossip worth talking about, so let’s get straight to it.

    Cheerio Checo

    Red Bull confirmed the departure of Sergio Perez from the team with Immediate effect and as expected announced Liam Lawson as his replacement. You must feel for Checo as he comes across as being a nice guy but ultimately you can’t be surprised at his departure given his form last season. F1 is a ruthless sport and Red Bull are known to be one of the more ruthless teams and arguably his results this season, or lack of them, potentially cost RB the Constructors Championship. Red Bull did however shoot themselves in the foot and made it harder by giving him the new contract just before the Canadian GP, I personally think they should have tried to go after Sainz, but I understand that Sainz Snr and Jos Verstappen don’t like each other, shock.

    He is replaced by Liam Lawson, getting the drive over Yuki Tsunoda, despite Tsunoda comfortably beating him in their head-to-head last season. For me the jury is still out on Lawson, I personally don’t think he’s shown anywhere as much as some of the other drivers that have had that second seat, but time will tell, and I may be proved wrong. I can see however, that he will likely cause sparks within the team and will possibly get his collar felt by Helmut Marko and Jos Verstappen.

    One wonders what Tsunoda must be thinking, he has done everything they have asked of him, and he has improved massively since he first entered F1. Unless Lawson fails spectacularly and gets the early axe, I think he will look elsewhere for 2026. Hard to know really where he would go, however. His best options might be Haas or trying for one of the spots with the new Cadillac team.

    What next for Checo? There is a strong possibility that we may not see him as a driver on the grid again. As with Tsunoda, spots for 2026 are already looking slim and unless there are any significant driver swaps/ moves the only real place I could see Checo ending up is either Haas or Cadillac, both teams would certainly benefit from the financial backing he brings.

    Isack Hadjar Takes The Last Seat

    With the promotion of Lawson, the young Frenchman takes the last spot on the grid. Again, for me I don’t really think this is a particularly strong choice. I have seen him in several F2 & F3 races over the last couple of years and whilst he has flashes of brilliance, he does have occasions where he goes missing or makes a lot of mistakes. For example, he had the chance to win the 2024 F2 Championship and stalled on the grid, then he had the audacity on team radio to blame the team! Time will tell and we will see how ruthless RB will be next year if he does not perform.

    Bottas Returns To Mercedes

    Another one to lose his seat at the end of 2024, Bottas is returning to Mercedes to be their reserve driver. Smart move for me, he did well when he was alongside Hamilton and will bring some experience that Antonelli can learn from for next season. He is also in prime position should Antonelli fail to deliver anything but the car back in bits.

    Hamilton Starts At Ferrari

    Finally, as its the start of a new year, that means that Hamilton has officially now joined Ferrari, despite the hoopla that surrounded him in Abu Dhabi he has not left the sport and will be donning the red overalls this season.

    What’s To Come?

    For F1 next up is the fancy multi-team reveal of their 2025 cars/ liveries in London. It’s more likely to be a livery reveal than an actual car launch.

    For me over the next couple of weeks I will be releasing my review and thoughts of 2024 team by team. I will start from the back of the grid and move forward. Looking forward to starting to add more now we are in 2025, evolving and hopefully growing. To stay up to date please subscribe (its free) and drop a like on the post.

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  • Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

    The 2024 Season Comes to a Close

    The final race of the season is complete and whilst it wasn’t a classic, it will be remembered for being the race where McLaren secured their first Constructors Championship since 1998. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were not even born in 1998, and it was the year I started watching the sport. Knowing the cars were carrying more downforce than the Ferrari’s, I was slightly worried they would be mugged down the back straight. Thankfully that didn’t happen, largely in part because of the contact between Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri which gave Norris a good gap that he was able to maintain and extend.

    First Corner Shenanigans

    “Move of a world champion that one”

    Oscar Piastri

    If you’ve got your tin foil hat on, you may buy into the conspiracy theory that the contact between Vestappen and Piastri was and intentional attempt to thwart McLaren from winning the Constructors Championship. The reasoning behind this is due to the “bad blood” between Zak Brown and Christian Horner. I do not buy in to this however it is another example of a typical Verstappen “I am coming through, if you don’t get out the way we will make contact” lunge up the inside. After the race he confirmed that it was his mistake and that he had tried to get out of it but could not. I find this is an odd thing to say considering during the race he thought the penalty was ridiculous. It didn’t really help Piastri who lost more time than Verstappens 10 second penalty and then caused a collision of his own. Still, he managed to fight his way back into the points.

    Leclerc Inspired Drive Not Enough for Ferrari

    Starting at the back of the grid Leclerc had a phenomenal race finishing in 3rd, he managed to avoid the contact at turn 1 and really stepped up to help put his team put McLaren under pressure. I will say however that the Ferrari is clearly much quicker than most of the cars out there so we shouldn’t be surprised that he managed to get on the podium, it’s not the first time we have seen this happen from a driver out of position, Verstappen and Hamilton have done it many times. I can be quite critical of the Ferrari drivers at time, they always have a mistake in them, but neither of them did make any mistakes, unfortunately for them it wasn’t enough.

    A Weekend of Goodbyes and Potential Goodbyes

    It’s not unusual for people to move around in F1, but we seem to have had more after this weekend than in previous seasons. Several goodbyes and not all of them went out on a good note. Colapinto ended his 9-race run with Williams retiring with an engine issue. Bottas ended his disastrous spell at Kick Sauber by putting Perez out of the race and then slamming into Magnussen, who left Haas finishing a lap down in 16th but claiming the fastest lap. Zhou Guanyu didn’t fare much better in 13th. Checo Perez retired after contact with Bottas, at the time of writing remains contracted to Red Bull for next season, but there are strong rumours this was his last race for RB. On a more positive note, Hulkenberg finished 8th in his last drive for Haas and Hamilton drove a great race to finish 4th in his last race for Mercedes.

    A Farewell to Hamilton

    I just wanted to quickly mention Hamilton. Obviously, this weekend was his last race for Mercedes, its forged one of the most memorable partnerships in F1 history with multiple Drivers and Constructors championships. Watching from the outside it feels like the right time and it seems like Hamilton needs a new challenge. Whilst it is a big deal all of the coverage, events and media attention it received this past weekend is ridiculous. After the race he was given a spot alongside the top 3 on the grid, he was supposed to have his own post-race interview that was cancelled. Anyone would think he was retiring from the sport, he’s only leaving Mercedes. A lot of the TV coverage as well particularly after the race was focused on this and I kind of felt it took away from discussing McLarens achievement. If they are like this with him moving to another team, I can’t imagine what they will be like when he actually retires.

    Results

    1stLando Norris11thAlex Albon
    2ndCarlos Sainz12thYuki Tsunoda
    3rfCharles Leclerc13thZhou Guanyu
    4thLewis Hamilton14thLance Stroll
    5thGeorge Russell15thJack Doohan
    6thMax Verstappen16thKevin Magnussen
    7thPierre GaslyDNFLiam Lawson
    8thNico HulkenbergDNFValtteri Bottas
    9thFernando AlonsoDNFFranco Colapinto
    10thOscar PiastriDNFSergio Perez

    What Is Next?

    With the season now finished, attention turns to the post season test, then all eyes will be on 2025 which starts in roughly 90 days. I will post my thoughts on any rumours or gossip circulating in that time. But I also intend to write some team-by-team reviews on how I feel they performed during this season. I will release these during the off season. Hopefully next season the blog can grow and improve.

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  • Handbags at Dusk

    Max vs George

    If this was WWE Teddy Long would be booking a tag team match. In one corner we have Verstappen and Christian Horner, the other Russell and Toto Wolff. If you were not aware after the last race Max spoke to the media about some shenanigans that went down after qualifying and accused Russell of doing his best to get him a grid penalty.

    George has responded this weekend by stating that Max was in the steward’s room swearing and arguing with them about the penalty, he has also suggested that Max has threatened to “put him on his head in a wall”. Obviously, this can’t just stay between the drivers as Horner and Wolff have gotten involved with the latter calling Horner a “little Terrier”.

    Max has hit back calling George a liar, which itself is a significant accusation. I do think to myself, why would the president of the GPDA lie about such things in a very public forum. However, I would like to think that Max would have a bit more about him than to swear at the stewards and make threats to George, at the very least you would assume there was an RB representative on hand to make sure these things didn’t get out of hand.

    Russell has further stoked the fire by suggesting that Max is also a bully within the team and earlier on in the season other teams such as McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin were inundated with RB engineer’s CV’s. He didn’t stop there, however. Referring to Max’s 2021 title win. George suggested if it happened the other way around then Michael Massi the race director at the time would have “feared for his life” from the Verstappens.

    I obviously have no contacts in the sport so I must take what you hear from the media with a pinch of salt, we know they are not always correct in their reporting and any information they get will be second or third hand information. What I do think however is that Max is clearly a tougher person than George, we all know the tough bringing up he had regarding his dad, and we all know the stories about how his dad has acted in the past. So, for me it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Max may have been sterner in his approach to the situation. It’s not the first time we have seen fireworks between drivers, Schumacher marching to the McLaren garage at Spa in 1998 springs to mind. However, threatening to harm another driver on track, if true, is another level.

    For me, instead of joining in the tit for tat. The team principles should be looking to nip this in the bud and not fanning the flames just because they also don’t like each other. Maybe it’s all a show to generate some talking points and get more people to tune in. I do think however that this needs to be dealt with harshly. If it’s true and I were to threaten someone I worked with, I’d be sacked or suspended immediately. They should be thrown into a room to discuss it like adults and get over it.

    Other drivers then chime in on the situation with Lando saying that Max only talks the truth, which would suggest he thinks George is lying. I am unsure who to believe to be honest, they are very different people and if there was a physical altercation I would put my money on Max to come out on top. It will be interested to see what happens in the race if they are close together that’s for sure. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

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