RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX

I wasn't expecting much from Russia, to be honest. In the past, it hasn't produced very exciting races, especially because there are so few places to pass on the track

But, in a happy surprise, the Russian Grand Prix was very exciting this year. My favorite moments were when Hamilton nearly didn't make it into Q3 in qualifying, thanks to Sebastian Vettel's red flag crash, but, to my disappointment, he made it to the line to start a fast lap just in time. We're convinced they waited to push the red button until Hamilton was over the line, but compared to all the F1 conspiracies we throw around, this seems like a small one.

My other favorite thing about this weekend was that Hamilton didn't win this race. Thanks to some amazing stewards, who awarded Hamilton TWO penalties for a two separate incidents before the race, Hamilton ended up getting 5 seconds for each penalty, ten seconds in total, which he had to serve in the pits. He whined about it the rest of the race.

In contrast, when Daniel Ricciardo was given a penalty, he didn't even complain. He just focused on making up the time and went forward. I really respect him for that.

I'm happy for Bottas win. Charles had another stellar race. Max got P2, in the end. And Sergio Perez finished fourth after a stellar race without the u[grades he should have, which were given to Lance Stroll instead. Lance didn't even make it one lap before crashing out. I hope that makes the paddock think about what a driver they're losing next year in Perez.

Here are my notes from the weekend...

FP1

• had a Russian dish for dinner to be festive

• Sainz has a spin into the wall and dramatically loses his back wing but starts up again right away and gets debris all over the track so virtual safety car

• Right at the same time as the Sainz spin, Kvyat has a spin too

• With about 40 minutes left, Latifi has a hard hit into the tire barrier at turn 10 and brings out the red flag and medical car for impact but he’s fine

• There’s a fire extinguisher that has a mind of its own and crofty is just like “turn it off, mate”

• Grosjean has a spin but keeps it out of the wall

• The dust on the track has caused a lot of offs and spins

• Kvyat gets in the way of Max and Pierre separately and they both cuss him out in the radio

FP2

• Bottas having problems with his steering and his hand being caught when he is turning the wheel

• Stefano Domenicali will replace Chase Carey as F1 President and CEO starting January 2021

FP3

• parasailing feature

• Sirotkin is shown as reserve driver in the Renault garage

• Crofty says there’s more of a chance of seeing Elvis walking into a bar than you do of seeing Charles on pole again this year like he was last year

• This lady has an F1 Russian nesting doll, where do I get that

• They’re talking about how Ocon has constantly been out qualified by his teammate

• Grosjean is frustrated on the radio with the car balance

• Grosjean has a spin but keeps it out of the wall

Qualifying

• in Q1, a whole load of people had their times deleted for track limits, including Hamilton

• Out in Q1: Grosjean, Gio, Kmags, Latifi and Kimi

• At the last second of Q1, George Russell jumps to P13 and makes it into Q2, whereas Latifi is down in 19 so he’s been out qualified all 10 times this season by George

• There’s a huge grey cloud looming nearby that threaten rain

• In Q2, Hamilton gets his super fast time deleted for track limits

• SEB CRASHES with 2 min 15 seconds left of the Q2 session and causes a red flag!

• When Seb crashed, Charles was behind and had to narrowly avoided Seb’s crash and Charles came on the radio swearing and reporting it was very close

• Hamilton is still in last so they don’t think he can make it out for an out lap and a fast qualifying lap

• Now Mercedes are saying they’re going to have enough time

• All the cars went out to queue up for the q2 restart and there’s 8 cars waiting at the end of the pit lane in front of Hamilton so they are not sure if they will have time

• Now they’re taking Stroll back into the garage for some reason??

• Hamilton made it to the line with one second and gets in the stupid fast lap and now we were all excited that he wouldn’t get the lap in and not make it into Q3 but then disappointment abounds and it’s the same as it always is

• Out in Q2: leclerc, Kvyat, Stroll, Russell, and then Seb because of his crash

• Hamilton, Max and then Bottas

• So proud of max for getting second!

• Great to see Perez in 4th

Race

• Albon starts with penalty for grid box change

• Hamilton under investigation for stopping in a fast part of a track for a practice start during qualifying

• Kevin gets away last on the grid for the formation lap so potential problems there

• Safety car after first lap which was really exciting, by the end of the race Stroll and Sainz are both out in separate incidents

• Sainz hit the wall hard going through the bollards where you need to return to the track

• Lance got bounced across the track and possibly hit from behind by Charles or Gasly

• The Haas have made up a lot of places and had a great start

• Lance didn’t even make it one lap even though he has all the special upgrade parts that they denied Perez

• Hamilton gets TWO SEPARATE 5 second penalties for the practice starts!! This is awesome, who are these stewards?

• Stewards say no investigation necessary for Charles and Lance because Charles left space

• Investigation on Perez for something but they say no investigation necessary

• Great racing between George, Lando and Alex at the back, very respectful

• Perez has a great pass on Daniel into fifth

• Mercedes call in Hamilton for pit stop at 14/53 but he says no and won’t go in

• 17/53 hamilton finally goes in and then serves the 10 second time penalty and is going to try and get to the end of the race on these tires

• Ocon can’t get past Vettel despite it being crucial for them

• Team orders Ocon to let Ricciardo past so Daniel can try to get past Vettel but daniel doesn’t go around the bollards right when he goes past Ocon

• Daniel immediately passes Vettel which Ocon couldn’t do all this time, putting Ocon to shame and then Daniel gets a 5 second five penalty for the bollards

• When they tell Daniel about his penalty on the radio, Daniel is totally calm and handles it so perfectly, whereas Hamilton has been complaining and whining about his own penalties thus hold time

• Grosjean takes out the styrofoam bollards when Seb tries to get past him so they pull a virtual safety car to replace the styrofoam bollards

• Fastest virtual safety car ever

• The vsc was so short that when they pit Gasly it puts him behind because they were expecting the vsc to be out longer

• Investigating Grosjean for going through bollards but no further action

• Really great scraps between Gasly, Albon and Lando in the midfield

• Bottas wins! And Max in second! Hamilton is only in third hahahah

• Alex Albon gets a time penalty for not going around the bollards

• Bottas on the radio after winning: “to my critics, to whom it may concern, eff you”

• Perez finished fourth which is awesome considering lance was out before lap one ended

• Charles drove yet another impressive race near the front while Seb was way in the back again

F1 FOODS: MUGELLO

I'm starting a new post series about the festive foods we eat for every race. Wherever the race is that weekend, we try to have food inspired by that region. It makes our family feel like we're closer to being at the actual race instead of in our living room.

Sometimes we do a full weekend of food, while other times we only do one dish or dessert to celebrate.

For Mugello weekend, we did a special jello recipe which we called "Mu-Jello". It's an old recipe in our family of strawberry jello (which we thought of as being in Ferrari red), mixed with whipping cream and pretzel bits to add a little salt. It sounds strange, but it's always a favorite when we have it!

ITALIAN GRAND PRIX (#2 - MUGELLO)

Mugello will go down in history as one of the craziest races I've ever seen. Based on reactions from the F1 community, I think it's fair to say that everyone was shocked at what a crazy race was delivered.

Here are my notes from the weekend:

FP1

• Mugellooooooooooo

• Ferrari 1000 race weekend and they announced Seb is going to force India next year and now Perez is out of a seat. This is a MAJOR development

• Ferrari have the special colors and red safety car for the Ferrari’s thousandth race

• Grosjean and Perez almost collide and both blame each other

• Latifi got a fine for speeding in the pit lane last race and this is the first weekend they have new management at Williams which does not seem like a good first impression

• Latifi is the only one who had any problem this session and had a spin into the gravel

FP2

• Grosjean reports engine problems and he can see the battery not charging even though he just got a new engine

• Charles had a little spin into the gravel but he’s fine

• Lando has a big high speed crash but it’s not nearly as bad as it could have been and he’s okay but it red flagged the session

• Seb also has a little spin and yellow flag but no crash

• Kimi and Sergio Perez collide and Kimi gets knocked into the gravel and red flagged. Incident notes then investigated after the session

FP3

• Perez given a one place grid penalty for his crash with Kimi in FP2

• On the practice flying laps, Latifi is actually properly faster than Vettel by a tenth of a second

• Gasly has a little trip through the gravel but no damage, just a little oversteer

• At one point George Russell completely lost his break pedal and it’s still the new owners first weekend

Qualifying

• Out in Q1: Gasly, Gio, Russell, Latifi, KMags

• Kvyat has an off at the end of Q2 but keeps it on track

• Out in Q2: Norris, Kvyat, Kimi, Vettel and Grosjean

• Lando’s first time out in Q2 this season

• OCON pulls a yellow flag at the last minute in Q3 when Bottas was on a fast lap to beat Hamilton so it hamilton Bottas Max again

• So happy Perez beat Stroll this quali after Perez had the worst week ever

Race

• Bot gets ahead really well and is leading

• FOUR CORNERS AFTER START THERES MAYHEM and all the sudden Max is out, at least four cars were involved, Sainz spun around

• So Max lost power immediately and then got hit being super careful and got beached and the threw his steering wheel and he’s furious

• Gasly out right away too in the melee

• So Kimi hit Max but that was one of the strangest messiest first lap incidents I’ve ever seen

• safety car of course

• Charles is somehow in third after the whole start, he dodged all sorts of things and had lightning fast reactions and he’s incredible

• George Russell us right behind Ocon and says Ocon needs to pit because he can see and smell that he’s on fire

• A BIZARRE RACE RESTART WHICH RESULTS IN ONLY 13 CARS LEFT

• RED FLAG TO REMOVE FOUR CARS FROM THE PIT STRAIGHT WOW WHAT A MESS

• Looks like Sainz got his hand injured in that crash because it was so sudden

• I didn’t even see Latifi get out in the pit straight but he was also out

• Theyre putting as many parts back on the car as they can while the red flag

• This is utter insanity having never been here before created a super dangerous situation

• Just two huge clouds of smoke from the two huge incidents so far

• Sooooooo oh my gosh I can’t even begin to explain what’s happened by lap 8 and there’s just major stuff to clean up

• After no red flag for three years then we get two races back to back red flagged, last week at Monza too

• So the back of the pack jumped the restart, tossed Gio in the air, thank goodness he was knocked back down by Latifi’s car and then Sainz hit Gio and I’m just not even sure, you’re just going to have to go watch what happened with BOTH incidents so far

• There was dodging and weaving at the first safety car restart and everyone was trying to get a jump on each others and it resulted in the carnage

• Ocon retired during the red flag from the brakes thing

• Okay now they’re about to restart with a standing start

• Kimi has a terrible stop where the Jack man didn’t see that the back left was one and it ends up with a 12 second stop and it was a pit equipment malfunction

• Charles has a amazing drive even though he’s dropping back

• A lot of good passing going on

• Lots of pit around lap 30

• Bottas making a call and saying he wants the opposite tire of Hamilton to catch

• Bottas pits first citing safety since he’s saying he’s getting tire vibrations

• THIS THING WITH THE TIRES TO HAMILTON AND BOTTAS. Bottas radios in while in second saying to give him the opposite to whatever Hamilton gets so he can fight them. Then I said they’re going to pit Bottas first so that he can’t know what tire Lewis will be on. AND THEN THEY DID EXACTLY THAT, bringing in Bottas first for « safety » reasons, THIS IS NONSENSE, and then when Hamilton comes in they put him on the same hard tire. AHGGGGHH

• 44/59 puncture for Stroll and has a high impact crash, or a failure which has something to do with failure

• Bottas gets ahead with the safety car and then the safety car cuts off Hamilton so he is able to get in HIS pit stop which is RIDICULOUS and THEN ALL OF IT DOESNT MATTER BECAUSE THERES A SECOND RED FLAG TO CLEAN

• I REPEAT SECOND RED FLAG IN ONE RACE

• THEY STARTED CLEANING UP THE RACING POINT WHILE IT WAS STILL ON FIRE AND CHAOS

• JUST CHAOS

• THEY NEEDED A SECOND FIRE EXTINGUISHER FOR STROLLS CAR

• So it will be a second standing start race

• They let Kimi and Grosjean to the front of the queue to unlap themselves

• Now Kimi is under investigation for a late pit lane entry possibly after the pit was closed but who knows

• At the second standing restart, Hamilton keeps first, DANIEL sneaks into second because Bottas not getting off the line and Albon able to get into 4th past Perez. Somehow George Russell has dropped to the back in 12th

• Daniel passed again by Bottas for second

• Kimi gets a five second penalty for crossing line into pit penalty and Kimi is FURIOUS « FOR WHAT » on the radio

• 51/59 ALEX PASSES DANIEL FOR THIRD YESSSS

• In the end, Hamilton wins, Bot in second, ALEX GETS HIS FIRST PODIUM IN THIRD WOOOOO

• Oh yeah this was the first race where some fans were allowed in