Formula 1 Grand Prix Discussion

This thread is for discussing any Formula 1 Grand Prix races

Well, this weekend is the big decider for who will win the championship. It's between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

Well, the final race took place today - and, Verstappen won the title:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/59628024

Congrats to Verstappen on winning his first Championship. He's done some tremendous racing all year, and he's a thoroughly deserving champion (as Hamilton would have been had he won it).

With that being said... this race witnessed some of the worst officiating I have ever seen, not just in Formula One, but in *any* sport. First of all, I was shocked that they allowed Hamilton to keep his lead when he ran wide on the first lap: it seemed pretty clear that he should've let Verstappen past. But, worse than that... the FIA broke their own Safety Car procedure, by: a) only allowing some lapped cars to pass (instead of all of them), and b) bringing in the Safety Car a lap early. I understand that they wanted an exciting finish (so did I), but... they completely threw out their own rule book in order to engineer that exciting finish.

Race Director Michael Masi deserves to lose his job over this. He should never, ever be allowed anywhere near a racetrack again.

Well, congrats to Verstappen!

But as for the race itself, it's a shame Masi didn't follow the F1 rules, as that kind of ruined what was meant to be a big finale. It seems a bit unfair on Hamilton too, as it looked like he was going to win until that incident happened.

Well, the last grand prix was certainly dramatic. The final ten laps was full of overtaking from the top four cars, so 1st place was constantly switching, until Sainz secured his 1st ever race win on lap 52.

Also, there was a big crash at the start of the race. But, thankfully, no one was seriously injured in it.

The British Grand Prix took place yesterday. The podium results were:
1st: Max Verstappen.
2nd: Lando Norris.
3rd: Lewis Hamilton.

What a fantastic performance from both McLaren drivers. Lando Norris did excellent to get keep hold of the P2 position, and even lead the race for the first 5 laps. Oscar Piastri did great to get 4th place. McLaren have improved lots since the start of the season.

And that was a great recovery drive from Lewis Hamilton. He started 7th, but was able to finish 3rd. And George Russell did well to move up a place and finish in 5th to help Mercedes keep hold of their 2nd position in the Constructors' Championship.

Also, that was a good result for Williams. Alex Albon getting 8th place in a Williams is a really good performance. he did incredibly well to hold off the challenge of the two Ferrari cars behind him. And that result means Williams have now moved up to 7th place in the Constructors' Championship. Logon Sargeant came close to getting his first points for Williams, but finished just a few seconds behind the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.

Overall, that was a very exciting and action-packed race to watch.

Yep, what a great race - and I'm very happy for Lando Norris!

Let's hope it's a sign of greater things to come for him and the McLaren team .

The Hungarian Grand Prix took place last weekend. The results were:
1st Max Verstappen.
2nd: Lando Norris.
3rd Sergio Perez.

McLaren had another great performance. Lando Norris scored another second place finish in the race. Oscar Piastri was running third for a while in the race, but eventually got overtaken by Perez and Hamilton to finish in 5th place. It seems like the car upgrades McLaren made in Austria have really paid off well.

There was some action on the first lap as both Verstappen and the two McLarens swept past Hamilton on the first corner. The top three stayed like that for several laps until both Perez and Hamilton eventually got past Piastri.

Overall, though, this race didn't have too much action in it. And nothing too interesting happened in the final stage of the race.

I have to admit, I thought the Hungarian Grand Prix was a real disappointment.

After qualifying, I was excited for the race, because I wanted to see: a) how long Hamilton would be able to hold off Verstappen, and b) whether Zhou could convert his excellent qualifying into a good race result. Sadly, I got the answer to both of those questions before the first corner: Verstappen swept past Hamilton immediately, and Zhou bungled his start and fell right down the field. After that, nothing else interesting happened for the rest of the race... I sat through the remainder of it, but I was bored the whole time.

Let's just hope the next race is better...

Kyng wrote:I have to admit, I thought the Hungarian Grand Prix was a real disappointment.

After qualifying, I was excited for the race, because I wanted to see: a) how long Hamilton would be able to hold off Verstappen, and b) whether Zhou could convert his excellent qualifying into a good race result. Sadly, I got the answer to both of those questions before the first corner: Verstappen swept past Hamilton immediately, and Zhou bungled his start and fell right down the field. After that, nothing else interesting happened for the rest of the race... I sat through the remainder of it, but I was bored the whole time.

Let's just hope the next race is better...

Yep, it was looking to be a much more exciting, action-packed race than it turned out to be. I thought that there would be a bit of a 1st place battle between Hamilton and Verstappen at the start. But, like you mentioned, the 1st lap just ended up with Verstappen sweeping past Hamilton right away.

Let's hope the Belgium Grand Prix will have more action!

Well, the Dutch Grand Prix took place today. It was certainly a very exciting race.

It started raining during the first lap. Lots of drivers went to pit for intermediate tyres over the next couple of laps. The drivers who stayed out on soft tyres started to lose lots of positions to the drivers on intermediates. Sergio Perez soon took the lead of the race. However, Verstappen was quick to catch up to Perez and regain the lead from him. After this the people on slicks soon began to reclaim previous positions once the drivers on intermediate tyres went into the pits to change to soft tyres.

Then came a twist to the race, when a safety car was called out after Logan Sargeant crashed. After the safety car ended, there were lots of various over-takes and action all over the track. It was a very entertaining race to watch and there was action everywhere.

The big twist came on lap 67, when the race was red flagged after heavy rain started to fall onto the track. The race was pasued for a while, before eventually being restarted with a rolling start, with two laps being driven behind the safety car.

After the restart, Alonso had a brief battle with Verstappen for the lead, but Max soon got too far ahead, so Alonso had to settle for second. Perez originally finished third, but was given a five second penalty, so that promoted Pierre Gasly to third. Alex Albon, who had started the race 4th but dropped down to 14th earlier in the race, made a great comeback to take 8th place for Williams which helps them extend their lead over 8th placed Hass in the Constructors Championship.

This race was certainly anything but boring. There was action constantly everywhere, and the teams had to constantly change race strategies due to the rain.

Yes, I thought it was an excellent race .

Congrats once again to Verstappen on his 9th consecutive win... this streak will have to end eventually, but who will stop him?

Congrats also to Gasly and Albon on great results for their respective teams - and to Liam Lawson on a respectable debut in which he certainly didn't disgrace himself .

Kyng wrote:Yes, I thought it was an excellent race .

Congrats once again to Verstappen on his 9th consecutive win... this streak will have to end eventually, but who will stop him?

Congrats also to Gasly and Albon on great results for their respective teams - and to Liam Lawson on a respectable debut in which he certainly didn't disgrace himself .

Good question there, @Kyng! If someone else is able to win a race this season, then my guess is that it would be Lando Norris. He's proven he can challenge Verstappen such as in qualifying for the last GP where he just missed out on pole, and the British GP where he overtook Max at the start and led the race for a few laps. My second guess would be Alonso, since he's done well this season and has really pushed the Aston Martin car to its full potential and has a good number of podiums this year. And then my third guess would be Lewis Hamilton.

Indeed Lawson did quite well on his debut. Especially since he only got one practise session before qualifying and didn't have much time to prepare for it.

Yeah, I'd certainly like to see Lando Norris getting a victory. He's certainly good enough, and he's had a few near misses!

I'm sure he'll have his chance sooner or later .

The Monza Grand Prix took place today. There was plenty of action all throughout the race. It was a great race to watch and didn't seem to have a single bland moment.

Sainz did great to hold Verstappen off for as long as he did. Sainz managed to lead the race for 15 laps, but was then overtaken right after the first chicane on that lap. And that battle between Sainz and Leclerc during the final laps of the race was epic. Both Ferrari drivers drove really well today to get P3 and P4 respectively.

And Alex Albon had another great race to earn a P7. He's been in fantastic form as of lately. George Russell had a fairly solid race today too, and there was some good racing between him and Perez earlier on in the race.

Also, congrats to Max Verstappen on his victory. Although, that was rather less surprising. I wonder how long it'll be before we have a non-Red Bull driver winning a race.

Hopefully won't be too much longer... while I admire what Max Verstappen and Red Bull have achieved, it does get a little repetitive!

Congrats to him, though - and also to Ferrari and to Albon on their good performances. And I should also throw out an honourable mention to Liam Lawson, who finished in P11 - just missing out on the points!