AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX (#2)

Officially referred to as the Styrian Grand Prix, it was F1's second weekend in a row at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.Which, for me, means it was the Austrian Grand Prix #2.

Last weekend's race was total chaos. The race this weekend was less insane, but was still exciting, and the weekend was invigorated by a stormy Saturday which put question marks next to what would go down on Sunday race day.

Ultimately, there were only three retirements as opposed to last weekend's nine retirements (!) by the end of the race. Penalties kept cropping up, most notably for Lando passing under a safety car during practice, and then Charles impeding Kvyat during qualifying, which I didn't see.

I couldn't watch qualifying like normal due to technology problems, but after seeing the race, I think I got the gist of it. It was probably exciting, like any rainy session, but the way that the cars have been gridding up has got me feeling even more like we're in The Twilight Zone.

After the race, I was strangely despondent. It was an exciting race which I'd watch again, but the Ferrari double retirement early in the race had me sort of checked out since the team has been in utter shambles.

Here are my notes from the weekend.

FP1

• Kubica is in this practice session for Gio

• Jack Aitkin is in for George Russell this session

• CHRISTIAN Horner confirmed that Seb will definitely not be at Red Bull next year oooooooo

• They added two more races to the 2020 season

• Latifi’s car blew and he parked it near a opening so they virtual safety car but then they threw a red flag because they panicked and couldn’t get the car through the hole and it happened right as Alex Albon was going out of the garage so they had to push him back

• they found the footage of last weekend when the wheel nut fell off Kimi’s wheel

FP2

• Lando gets a penalty for passing an Alpha Tauri under a yellow flag but I don’t know if it was in the race or the practice session. Later they said it was in FP1 when Latifi had his problem and it’s a 3 grid penalty

• Daniel has a big impact slide into the tire barrier and it calls the medical car and when he got out the car he was limping and they red flagged the session to clear the car away.

• Talking about how Seb called the car undriveable after last weekend

• Lance Stroll has had so many times deleted for track limits

• Still waiting to hear if Daniel is okay

• Alex Albon has a scary spin across the track but no damage

• Daniel is okay to race but he’s just got soreness / bruises

• Gasly is yelling over the radio because he’s mad that Kvyat is getting a toe behind him and Gasly wants the toe

• Alex spins into the gravel during his quali sim lap

FP3

• cancelled for rain

Qualifying

• went ahead but it didn’t play on our TV because it was delayed and so they didn’t have a time slot for it and my F1 TV subscription still wouldn’t let me play the qualifying replay because the site wasn’t recognizing that I had a subscription. But it was only for that one video of the Styria GP Qualifying

Race

• Charles went down the inside of Seb in a busy corner and it pushed Charles over a curb and the car jumped up and took off Seb’s back wing

• Both Ferrari’s into the pits, Charles gets tires and goes back out and Seb has to retire

• Safety car to clean up Ferrari debris

• Then Charles retires too

• It’s a shame for Ferrari because they needed this race to see if their “upgrades” work

• Daniel passes Ocon after Ocon made it difficult and held both Renault’s up

• Ocon retires because of a cooling issue

• Sainz has a 7 second stop because a back wheel won’t come off

• Red Bull is having lightning fast stops today

• Bottas had longer tire life so he caught Max in second by the end and Max gave him a good fight but he has to let him pass

• Good battles by Perez passing everybody today and almost snagging fourth place, but Lando took it at the last minute

• Great last lap action. Lando passes Perez and Stroll, while both Racing Points and Daniel's Renault go over the line together

• Hamilton in first, Bottas in second, Max in third.

Post-Race

• These podium antics are getting way beyond ridiculous. There was a smoke machine that the three podium people had to walk through and Max walked through it like it wasn't even there. But the most hilarious part was the mobile trophy carts which approached each person individually.

AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX (#1)

This was a very different version of F1 than we are all used to, and there was a lot of crazy things going on, but despite everything, I will accept the simple joy of seeing the F1 cars back on the track.

Man, that was a crazy race.

My sister commented that the amount of carnage that was in the Austrian Grand Prix yesterday was similar to the carnage you usually see in a rain race. We've never seen so much destruction on a beautiful day in the Austrian mountains before.

With 20 cars starting the race, by the end, there were only 11 cars left running. And none of it was from a big crash. It was like they all had mothball syndrome and the cars had been sitting around for so long that they just didn't know what to do when they went back on track.

Check out my race notes below...

Free Practice 1

• I’m so excited that they’re all back together that I’m willing to ignore all the nonsense going on

• New photos! New replay clips! New intro! Yay! Now they all line up at the end of the intro

• We have a pit wall camera for Christian Horner now!

• Apparently the juiciest news is that even though we knew Seb was leaving Ferrari, we learned today that he didn’t even get to negotiate, Ferrari just told him they didn’t want him there anymore

• Strange not to have fans there but it’s really not that different and I’ve forgotten a couple times that people weren’t there

• Ughhh I forgot that we have to deal with Esteban Ocon this year

• Perez’s car is blowing out smoke

• Ocon lost a part of his car out there

• Toto Wolf is the only person wearing a clear face shield instead of a mask

• Max spins and everyone’s like “is he rusty” ... NO HE'S FINE

• George Russell narrowly avoided a spinning Kvyat

Free Practice 2

• Martin Brundle is back in the commentary box! I’ve missed him so much!

• Kvyat spins and Latifi has to avoid

• Latifi spins similar to Max in FP1

• Discussing some drama about the Mercedes DAS steering system, it’s new and a lot of contention if it’s legal

• For some reason that Renault won’t say, they didn’t get out until 20 min into the session

• something is smoking out of the back of Daniel’s Renault.

• Kimi has a quick trip through the gravel

• Max goes through the gravel the same place as Kimi later

• Albon spins

• Grosjean spins

Free Practice 3

• Latifi spins into the wall and red flag for the first time this season which was sad because he was trying really hard yesterday not to mess right away. It was a hard enough hit to signal the medical car

Qualifying

• Stroll shot to the top at the end of Q1 because is car is based on last year’s Mercedes and it’s really telling a lot about how much driver talent is involved in driving one of those

• Out in Q1: Magnussen, Russell, Gio, Kimi and Latifi

• Out in Q2: Vettel, Gasly, kvyat, Ocon, Grosjean

• This wasn’t mechanical issues or anything for the Ferraris, it was Seb genuinely didn’t have the pace and Charles just barely made it into Q3, he was in 9th

• Bottas gets pole even though he goes through the grass at the last minute and yellow flags the end of the Q3 and it could have possibly compromised Hamilton’s last fast lap which is awesome

• At the end it was Bottas on pole, Hamilton in second and Max in third

Pre-Race

• hamilton gets a grid start penalty for not slowing during Bottas yellow flag in quali so demoted from 2 to 5

• Hamilton’s demotion means Lando starts in his McLaren from 3rd instead of 4th

• Charles feature

• Max feature

• Tons of politics blahhhhh

Race

• Bottas flies 2.5 seconds ahead in the start and Max keeps 2nd fighting with Norris

• Albon passes Norris into 3rd

• Perez punted Charles off the road on the first corner but charles is fine and still going

• Both Force India’s are smoking out the back

• 11/71 Max’s car is dying and they tried everything to restart it and even manually restarted and he just had to retire

• Seb passes Stroll who has with engine problems and now seb is in 8th

• Everyone is passing Stroll with engine problems and he’s out of the points by lap 21

• 21/71 Grosjean has trip through gravel and a bad spin but is still going

• 21/71 Stroll retires and drives right into the garage

• 26/71 KMags breaks go and Ocon passes him because of it and KMags goes flying into the gravel with no breaks and now it calls out the safety car and KMags is out

• Perez almost runs into Lando in the safety car rush is the pit lane and it could totally be an unsafe release for Force India

• 31/71 after the safety car restart Sainz is trying to pass Charles and then Seb behind Sainz stuck his nose in behind the corner and Sainz spins Seb so he was in 8 and now he’s in 15 with only Latifi behind

• Perez breezes past Lando into 4th

• Grosjean showed black and white flag for going over track limits and if he goes out one more time he will get a black flag

• Now both Mercedes, Bot and Ham in second, are having “critical” sensor issues and they have been told to not go on the curbs

• Grosjean loses breaks and does same thing as KMags and he has to retire

• 51/71 George Russell was having a great race and then his Williams went boom and he pulled over and triggered safety car and now everyone’s pitting

• 56/71 on safety car restart, Kimi is coming around the final corner onto the main straight and his front right just CAME OFF and flew off into space so we don’t know if it was loose or wasn’t on and there was no tether to stop it because it wasn’t a suspension failure but it was probably just a wheel but not on and Kimi crashes on the main straight and they have safety car again and Kimi retires

• 13 cars are left right now. This is so twilight zone weird

• On safety car restart Albon was passing Hamilton and Hamilton shunted him off and put Albon in last

• Charles is making a last minute return and could be on podium or win if the Mercedes have gearbox failures like they’re talking about

• Hamilton gets a five second time penalty for causing a collision with Alex!!!! YES that even puts him potentially off the podium

• Kvyat’s tire explodes and he retires

• Perez gets a time penalty for speeding in the pit lane

• Bottas wins, Charles in second and Lando in third!! AND NO HAMILTON ON THE PODIUM AT ALL YAYYYYY

• So happy it’s Lando’s first podium!

• All the podium celebrations are different because of corona but. You know.

• That was a CRAZY craaaazy race. By the end, there were only like 11 cars out of 20 still running and that doesn’t even count people like Seb and Albon who had on track incidents but kept running

• This was like rain race level carnage but it was a hot sunny day. It was like everyone had forgotten how to race in the last few months and all the mothballs came out in full force

• Well we have another weekend in Austria next weekend!

And it's lights out! Kind of...

It was finally F1 time again this last weekend, but it felt very different thanks to all the precautions that were in place for COVID19, just like all the changes in the rest of the world. But I am just glad we are back racing. Stay tuned for my notes on last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix!