Updated:
Jun 18, 2023 10:27 pm
The weather forecast before the weekend came around suggested we’d have a wet Saturday and a dry Sunday, after Saturdays qualifying hopes were high for an interesting Grand Prix, an unusual grid would lineup but sadly the biggest surprise, Nico Hulkenburg, would receive a penalty before it all started, dropping him from a remarkable P2 to P5.
The entire race didn’t see rain nor did it have many accidents, but strategy became confusion as teams quickly realised that the tyre degradation was a lot higher than anticipated originally, meaning it was all up in the air, some drivers were struggling on their tyres just after 20 laps on them, whereas some drivers managed to keep them going for 50 laps!!
Overall the fight in the midfield really was the highlight of the race, a DRS train for around 30 or so laps was formed which created suspense and drama to the whole race, Alex Albon would end up coming out on top to produce a remarkable points finish.
Max Verstappen Equals Stunning F1 Record
After his performances this season it would be no surprise that soon enough Max would’ve broken another record, however, we didn’t expect it to be as spectacular as the one he’s broken after winning the Canadian Grand Prix
After the dominant performance today Verstappen has managed to equal the record of 3 Grand-Slams in a row! Tied with the great Jim Clark and Alberto Ascari.
To be clear on what a Grand-Slam is, it is when a driver: Start from Pole Position; lead every lap of the race; wins the race; and has the fastest lap time.
An absolutely sensational record that i’m sure he’s proud off, Verstappen has often downplayed when breaking records as he believes they aren’t as meaning full since the F1 track calendar now has more races, however, a record such as this one I doubt he will downplay as this takes a good car as well as a driver who can deliver consistently across 3 races without making a single error.
The Thai Whisperer
Alex Albon unsurprisingly won the driver of the day award, a simply sensational drive sees him claim 6 major points for Williams.
After George Russell had his collision with the wall, the safety car was brought out and the majority of the people decided to pit, this included Albon himself.
However, the teams who had boxed under safety car would go on to make another pit-stop, but Williams saw that the one stop was possible and decided to leave Albon out and let him work his magic.
After pushing consistently and defending the likes of George Russell before his retirement, and pushing on 50+ lap old tyres, he managed to hold everyone off which nobody believed he could, to get a vital 6 points that no one thought he could achieve.
Before the race, Williams sat on just 1 point and now after the Grand Prix they’ve got 7 points, putting them above AlphaTauri in the constructors which could be crucial later on in the season. Those points Albon managed to achieve might just have secured Williams a position in the constructors at the end of the season.
It is only the beginning of the season, but with both AlphaTauri and Williams struggling , points at the beginning of the season could define what happens, only time will tell.
I guess the biggest shame of Albon’s superior result is the lack of coverage it received on Sky Sports, with Sky mainly focusing on the top 3, more often then not, performances in the midfield get unnoticed which is a shame as the results sometimes are more then just the top 3 and do go further back. Perhaps they will do so in the future.
FIA Penalty Galore
During this weekend the FIA decided to be unusually harsh on penalties.
The wet qualifying obviously influenced the increase in penalty decisions, but 4 drivers received grid penalties before the start of the race.
Those drivers being, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda and Nico Hulkenburg, Nico was penalised due to not following the procedure under red flag conditions, which sadly saw his headline P2 slip away from him.
As well as the other 3 drivers who all received penalties for impeding, in addition to the qualifying penalties, Lando Norris also received a 5 second time penalty during the race for ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’, this was later explained saying he was given a penalty due to driving too slow under the safety car, backing up the pack.
Unfortunately for Lando, this penalty would see him drop out the points meaning another race where McLaren comes away empty handed.
With the FIA apparently being fairly eager to give out penalties, I am worried for 2 weeks time, where we head over to Spielberg for the Austrian Sprint Week, as well as being one of the better circuits on the calendar, it is also known for giving out a lot of track-limit warnings and penalties as the ruling is so strict.
If the FIA decide to keep gifting out penalties, i’m sure we could potentially be heading for another record being broken.
