5 in a row for Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen took his 5th win in a row to stretch his gap at the top of the championship to 116 points. Max is so far ahead; he can actually clinch the title in Singapore next time out. Charles Leclerc finished his team’s home race in second place ahead of George Russell who rounded out the podium.
The biggest talking point
The biggest talking point of this race will be what changes are needed so that the race doesn’t finish under safety car. Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren pulled off to the side of the track with about six laps to go. For some reason, it took about 4 laps for the race leader to be on the back of it. Also, the safety car had picked up George Russell meaning he was nearly a lap down by the time Verstappen got to the front of the queue. Then, Ricciardo’s car had been clearly cleared but for whatever reason, the race never resumed. This needs to be looked at urgently as nobody wants to see the race end under safety car. We ever should have got racing with a one lap shootout or, have the red flag come out with about 3 to 4 laps to go. This would have allowed a grandstand finish to the race which is what every besides Max Verstappen wanted (he was so quick; I don’t even think he would have minded). This led to the crowd booing which you’d expect given the fact that they’ve been stopped from potentially seeing an exciting climax to the race that they have paid to go to. Did it have something to do with the fact that Charles Leclerc was in second, absolutely but me, as a Max Verstappen fan, feels that there should have been a red flag like there was in Baku last year.
The Standout drives in the race
Surprisingly for me, I gave 5 people a perfect race rating. One of them, as per usual, was Max Verstappen who went from 7th to first and made it look easy. I fully believe that Max will break Sebastian Vettel’s record of the most consecutive race wins. I also gave both Mercedes drivers a perfect 10. George Russell drove another excellent race, didn’t make any mistakes and fully maximised the result. As for Lewis Hamilton, 19th to 5th is a very impressive result, particularly given the fact that that car hasn’t been as good here as previous weekends. Carlos Sainz also did an excellent job as he also managed to finish 14 places higher than were he started. The final driver that I gave a 10 to was Nyck De Vries. De Vries was excellent this weekend, to jump into the seat with basically no practice and to bring home 2 points is pretty ridiculous. If he hasn’t just shown that he should be in F1, he never will. A quick shout out to Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris too as they drove very well today.
Drivers who had a horror race
I gave 2 drivers a rating of 1. Nicholas Latifi was awful today. He has been in the Williams team for three seasons, and he gets beaten by a guy who was having coffee in the Mercedes motorhome just a few hours before qualifying. And not just beaten, destroyed. Latifi finished 15th and a lap down compared to his teammate’s P9. No more words for this guy, if I was Jos Capito, I’d have Latifi out for De Vries straight away. Another driver who was really shocking today was Kevin Magnussen. The Haas has been pretty poor this weekend but his teammate finished 4 places higher than him so he can’t use that as an excuse. Also, he finished behind Latifi which tells you all you need to know. A tough few rounds for K-Mag. Both Aston’s also didn’t have a very good race but they both had reliability issues and also, Esteban Ocon failing to score points was a pretty poor showing.
Overall Race Result and my rating
Max Verstappen: 10
Charles Leclerc: 9
George Russell: 10
Carlos Sainz: 10
Lewis Hamilton: 10
Sergio Perez: 7
Lando Norris: 9
Pierre Gasly: 8
Nyck De Vries: 10
Zhou Guanyu: 7
Esteban Ocon: 3
Mick Schumacher: 4
Valtteri Bottas: 3
Yuki Tsunoda: 3
Nicholas Latifi: 1
Kevin Magnussen: 1
Daniel Ricciardo: 7 (DNF)
Lance Stroll: 2 (DNF)
Fernando Alonso: 5 (DNF)
Sebastian Vettel: 2 (DNF)
Danny Ric with a 7!!