RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX

Wow, Russia, wow. When I said I hoped I'd be seeing red this race, this was not what I meant.

Ferrari came to this track more powerful than they've been all year. Fresh off of three back-to-back wins after an otherwise winless season, Ferrari was looking like Russia was going to be their fourth win in a row.

So when Charles Leclerc got his sixth pole of the season in Russia, everything was looking like it was going to plan.

But once the race started, that's when all plans went out the window.

Early in the race, I kept thinking to myself, "If Mercedes wins this race, it will be entirely Ferrari's fault."

Apparently, Ferrari's strategy was so have Charles block Hamilton at the start so that Seb could get the slipstream, not Hamilton. Charles followed those instructions to a tee and the plan worked. Seb was out front, because Charles had scarified his lead to help his teammate based on a previously arranged agreement that then Seb would give Charles back the lead after Ferrari's advantage was secure.

The only problem was, once Seb was in the lead, he wasn't about to give the lead back to anybody.

Cue the barrage of red team radio.

This conflict lead to Ferrari having to scrap about fourteen plans before lap five and when they finally settled on something to do, all the confusion had given Mercedes and advantage again.

Just when the team had worked out a way for Charles to be back in his rightful lead, Seb's car died. Which caused a safety car. Which gifted Mercedes the win. Again.

I was looking to see Ferrari red, not the red of unbridled rage.

And to think that there was a lot of worrying during the practices that this track wouldn't be able to deliver a very exciting grand prix.

After this weekend, it is more important than ever that Ferrari takes a long look in the mirror and get their priorities straight. I love Seb and I love Charles, but Ferrari has got their priorities all wrong. As painful as it is to admit to myself, Seb has not been the Sebastian Vettel of previous championship years. He's been making mistakes and his driving has given me the impression that his heart isn't in this. Seb's win in Singapore came from the team making Charles a scapegoat and treating him completely unfairly.

Which is why I have to insist that Ferrari realize one thing: this team is not Vettel and Leclerc. This team is Leclerc and Vettel and it has been for a long time now.

Ferrari making Seb the team priority over Charles have cost them major victories this year, and will continue to devastate the team if they don't recognize what they have in Leclerc.

Ferrari is treating Charles Leclerc like a wingman. Here's the point: Charles Leclerc is not a wingman. He's the future of the team. So treat him that way.

Here are my notes from this weekend:

Free Practice 1

- apparently there was barely any overtaking on this track the last few years 

- Kvyat’s engine just died and he pulled over and that caused a virtual safety car. I forgot he’s going to have the home race curse this weekend. 

- SOOOOO they talked to Charles about his radio messages at Singapore and this boy has an unbeatable amount of self control and apparently everyone was saying he shouldn’t have been radioing the team about the fact that they allowed Seb to undercut him. And that is COMPLETELY wrong. He had every right to say the things he said because it was a terrible strategy for him after all he’s done for the team. He said he wakes up thinking about victory and goes to bed thinking about victory and so it’s hard not to say those things but clearly someone has told him not to say those things and that is incredibly disappointing. Ted Kravitz said exactly what I think about it which is that he was completely in his rights to say what he said and that we want people to come over the radio to say those things when something unfair like this happens. I’m incredibly disappointed in Ferrari for suggesting to Charles something insane like he was making the team look bad by saying these things because if we know anything it’s that Ferrari so more than capable of looking like fools all by themselves and Charles is only ever a merit to their team that they often don’t even deserve. Someday they will learn that they have the future champion of the world on their hands and that he deserves much better than the way they’re treating him now. 

- There’s gonna be problems with this one corner with bollards that are impossible to make according to FIA instructions 

- Daniel into barrier, also Kubica

- Bottas has a DRS failure and the back left side of the wing collapsed 

Free Practice 2

- The two Toro Rossos touched when they didn’t know which way each other was going 

- Albon and Hamilton nearly had a huge crash but avoided at he last minute 

Free Practice 3

- All Honda powered cars including Red Bull and Toro Rosso are taking engine penalties this race

- The track was rained on all night 

- After next season, McLaren is changing from Renault engines to Mercedes engines WOAH. This is after they already changed from Honda to Renault. Now they’re gonna go from Renault to Mercedes. 

- Toro Rosso wants to change their name to Alpha Tauri or something which would be so confusing because we already have Alpha Romeo 

- Kvyat’s car died again and now they need to change the engine and it won’t be ready for qualifying but with all of his penalties, he’d be starting from the back anyways 

- Max goes over some curbs in a hefty way but no visible damage

- Mercedes can’t find pace compared to the other two top teams 

Qualifying 

- in Q1, Kubica spins

- In Q1, Albon spins into the barrier, crashes and causes a red flag.

- This is the third time Vettel has had his flying lap interrupted. It’s been a slippery corner for everybody too that he went off on 

- Out in Q1: Kimi, Russell, Kubica, Albon who crashed, and Kvyat who didn’t go out because his car wasn’t ready 

- Out in Q2: Gasly, Perez, Gio, Magnussen and Stroll 

- A lot of talking in Q3 about how incredible Charles is and the significance of what he’s done. Ferrari team says that not only is Charles quick, but every race, he’s getting quicker. 

- CHARLES ON POLE, the last time a Ferrari driver had four straight poles in a row was in 2001 

- Ham in 2nd at last minute (like he always does at the last minute) then Seb in 3rd. Charles was mad at himself for his purple lap which was awesome but not perfect 

- Not since 2011 has a non Mercedes driver taken pole four times in a row

- The crowd is cheering for Charles pulling in 

Pre-Race

- ok this is the single most effective pre race hype video I’ve ever seen. It was one of the best trailers. My heart is pounding. I can’t believe all of my dreams for Charles are coming true right now. 

- They do a grid walk but not with Martin Brundle because he’s not in Russia this weekend. I think he’s racing somewhere else this weekend 

Race

- Charles has a great start and keeps Hamilton away, but then Seb has an awesome run past Hamilton and Charles and ends up leading after turn 2, Charles in second. This is exactly what Charles predicted was bad about getting pole because it allows a teammate to slipstream 

- On lap one, Daniel turns into Grosjean and sends Grosjean into the barrier, who is furious. Daniel has a puncture but will keep running while Grosjean is out of the race. Apparently Gio was involved too. Lap one safety car. 

- Also on lap one, Lance Stroll tagged Gio, then Gio eventually tags Daniel, because he was being squeezed by Daniel and Grosjean and then Daniel hits Grosjean, which is what caused Grosjean to get out 

- 6/53 Seb will let Charles past next lap, what?! Yes Charles in front but why so early?! Now this is unfair to Seb? So what’s going on??

- There’s an unbelievable amount of confusion between the two Ferraris about who should be in front and both think they’re right and in this case it’s just maddening because both are right and this is Ferrari’s fault 

- Constant radios from Seb and Charles in the first ten laps and Mercedes better not be hearing  all this confusion cause that gives them an advantage 

- Drive through penalty for Kimi for a false start at the beginning 

- The Ferrari plan is completely falling to pieces right away and now they’re saying they’re gonna swap Charles to front later on in the race and Charles has to come over the radio really respectfully again and remind them that he’s played the team game and now he’s in second, not first. I mean this is the SECOND week of this

- Seb is extending his gap out front 

- If Mercedes get ahead in this race, it will be purely because Ferrari screwed up their own plans AGAIN 

- 23/53 they pit Charles first even though he’s in second just like they did with Seb first in Singapore even though he was in second, but the undercut is not as powerful here as it is in Singapore so it might not put Charles in front like it did for Seb in Singapore

- Alex Albon has a great pass on Gasly and shows that he can handle the Red Bull after a tough weekend 

- Hulk gets a black and white flag for driving apparently dangerously which we haven't seen this race because there has been too many other things going on. He also got dropped off the jack during his pit stop at Renault.

- All this fighting at Ferrari is giving Mercedes an advantage because of the squabbling

- Riccardo out because of loss of pace from the first lap incident 

- Ferrari has left Vettel out for a bunch of laps after Charles pit stop and now it’s looking like when they pit Seb, they’re gonna have Seb come out after Charles 

- 26/53 they pit Seb and it’s a half second longer stop than Charles had and now Charles is in front of Seb again 

- 28/53 SEB RETIRES BECAUSE AN MGUK PROBLEM AND HES OUT OF THE RACE and now there’s an virtual safety car and this plays right into Hamilton’s hands because they’re gonna pit him under the safety car 

- SEB’S CAR FAILURE HAS BASICALLY GIVEN HAMILTON THE LEAD, SO FERRARI GAVE MERCEDES THE WIN 

- George Russell went into the wall 29/53 under the virtual safety car after the pit because lost the brakes. Now a full safety car again so this could give Ferrari a chance again 

- Now Kubica retires and pulls into the garage, so double retirement for Williams. They retired because they’re worried about the same issue as Russell had with the breaks 

- They pit Charles under the safety car to be able to challenge Hamilton on the same fast tires 

- When they pitted an Alpha under safety car, they couldn’t get the front jack out and the mechanic pulled with all his might and ended up taking a big tumble 

- Gasly and Kvyat having some dramatic scraps

- Kmags gets a 5 second time penalty for going off and gaining an advantage

- Charles is charging the whole last part of the race except for when he needs to recharge

- Final result: UGH it’s another Mercedes 1-2, you can guess who is first and who is second

- Charles in third after an extremely exhausting race that demanded everything of him and that he delivered all he could 

SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX

It's stressful enough when you know you're in for a street circuit. And it's equally bad when you know you're in for a night race.

But a night race on a street circuit??

That was sure to breed some interesting drama.

Sure enough, we were not let down.

Although this race did result in my three favorite drivers standing on the podium, (a fantastic sight, I have to say), they didn't end up in the order that seemed fair. Charles won the last two races with spectacular fights, every inch earning his win. Things were looking great for Charles to get his first three wins and do it in three consecutive weekends, but that's when Ferrari stepped in and remembered their oath to treat Charles like the wingman.

Even though he was the only one to win Ferrari any races before Singapore. And not just one race. Two races. And that doesn't count the, minimum, two other victories he had stolen from him earlier this year in Bahrain (Ferrari's fault) and Austria (Ferrari's fault and also Max is so fantastic).

Yes, Seb should have won for Ferrari in Canada. But after Canadagate 2019, in which the FIA over-penalized Seb for an (admittedly ostentatious) mistake in order to give Mercedes the advantage, the end result was that it just wasn't how things went down. In the end, Canada went to Mercedes, not Ferrari this year.

I cannot believe that, after all Charles has done for Ferrari in his first year there, they're still treating Charles like he's second best. As far as I'm concerned, the Italian Grand Prix cinched it: the Ferrari boys officially went from Vettel and Leclerc to Leclerc and Vettel. And if you need proof of that, then I'd suggest taking a look at any of the images of the post-race celebrations in Italy. Charles became a national hero and ended Ferrari's 9 year dry spell of wins at Monza.

But still, they come to Singapore the week after Charles 2 maiden wins and give Seb the advantage of pitting first in the race, even though Charles was leading. You always pit the leader first, or else you risk the undercut. That's basic race strategy.

Every time I kept shouting what Ferrari needed to do in order to make things right for Charles in the Singapore GP, the most frustrating moment would be when I remembered that there was no reason for him to be in that position in the first place. If they had just treated him like the future champion he is, then he wouldn't have even had to worry about trying to overtake Seb in the second half of the race.

In summary, Charles did everything the team asked him to do and did it without a single error. And what happened? They lost him his win.

Check out my notes on the weekend's sessions below:

Free Practice 1

- they announced Kubica is leaving Williams next year

- Announced in a total surprise to me that Kmags and Grosjean are both staying at Haas next year even though we thought Hulk was going to take one of their seats. Now Hulk still needs a seat but he’s apparently asking for some huge salary 

- Charles car got stuck in 4th gear and when it went pop his head sort of nodded forward cause it slowed down so much and then he made it back to the  pits going slow and turned it off just inside the pit and then they had to roll him back 

- Bottas goes into the wall hard an inexplicably, seemingly because of some oversteer at the previous turn but now he session is red flagged and nobody knows how they’re going to clear the car with about 20 min left. 

- I still can't believe it's a night race. On a street circuit. STRESS 

Free Practice 2

- it’s night for this session! 

- Charles is sitting at the back of his garage waiting and looking cute while Ferrari tries to fix whatever blew up on his car all by itself last session 

- You can see into people’s helmets sometimes, especially Seb 

- Alex Albon ran into a wall but only needs a front wing replacement

- Charles carrying speed through a corner and Lance is dilly dallying there and doesn’t get out of the way and Charles had to swerve and then as he was going by he raised his hand at him like “???????”

- Perez shoved Magnussen into the wall to keep the front position even though it’s practice but also Kmags snuck up there in a weird way and now the incident is noted 

Free Practice 3

- there’s a lot of smoke coming out of the back of Kvyat’s car and they had to bring him back in Alex Albon’s car came back covered in oil from Kvyat 

- Perez hit the wall at turn 22 and knocked his back right tire and now it’s punctured and hanging off. Bits of the wheel on the track. Yellow flag and virtual safety car to clean up the shattered wheel. 

- Hahahah Hamilton spun right out of the pit with fresh tires. 

Qualifying 

- Kvyat confirmed for Toro Rosso again next year 

- In Q1, Sainz reports no power but keeps going fine 

- Lance Stroll scrapes the wall a few times 

- Out in Q1: Kvyat, Stroll, Grosjean, Russell, Kubica

- In Q2, Kimi brushed the wall 

- Out in Q2: Perez, Gio, Gasly, kimi, Kmags  

- CHARLES ON POLE FOR THE THIRD RACE IN A ROW!!!! He did it at the last minute and it was beautiful. Then Ham. Then Seb! Yay Seb! 

Pre-Race 

- there’s a 100% record of safety cars in Singapore so it’s a matter of time

- Charles talked Ant through the Quali lap that got him pole yesterday and it was a great feature 

- 1,600 lights surround this circuit 

- Apparently Daniel was disqualified from qualifying for a technical infringement 

- Now there are reports that Charles had a fire up problem right before the start of the formation lap which hopefully will come to nothing

Race 

- Charles flies out front right away and puts an immediate a gap between him and Ham in second and Vettel who is giving Hamilton a really hard time in third

- George Russell drove into Daniel Ricciardo on first lap so damage but has a wing change and then goes back out

- Sainz is in back after first lap for some reason because of some damage and in pits for 42 seconds. Contact with Hulkenburg and managed to carry on but Sainz was the one who came out worse

- Charles now controlling the pace of the pack out front, going slow to conserve tires

- The first twenty laps here are pretty slow and boring because they’re basically just conserving tires 

- On lap 20/61, Ferrari pitted Seb instead of Charles first even though Charles is leading the race 

- Then Charles pitted right after and somehow Seb undercut him which is totally wrong for the team to do

- Hamilton doesn’t pit the next lap like he needed to because they are counting on a safety car and now it let Seb Charles and Max in front 

- Crofty: “This. Is. A. Puzzle.” And that pretty much sums it up. This is all about pit strategy and it’s not like any other race 

- Around lap 25/61, the top three are encountering traffic of Stroll, what a nightmare and might allow Mercedes to catch up to the top three. That’s the Mercedes play. 

- Ferrari severely compromised for pace by Stroll

- BOTTAS ORDERED OVER THE RADIO TO “work for the team” which is just “we need you to stay back to babysit Lewis” and it’s unbelievable to ask him to do this

- Charles has totally lost out by doing exactly what his team asked him to do and it’s screwed him over 

- Vettel accidentally pushes Gasly off the track as he was passing 

- Seb Charles and Max all get past Stroll who hasn’t pitted and that helps them for pace

- In 8 and 9, Riccardo collided with Gio and gave himself a rear puncture and now he has to go in and it puts him right to the back of the field again 

- 36/61 Grosjean pushed Russell into the wall, double yellow waves and the Williams is just in the wall sitting there. Safety car deployed. Russell said about Grosjean: “I shouldn’t be surprised” 

- Lance Stroll collided with Gasly and then Lance Stroll also “just turned into a wall all by himself” and he has to pit with a puncture

- Charles is catching Seb up front and they are allowing them to race

- Lap 43/61 Perez slows to a stop on the track and this is the SECOND safety car now because of a mechanical failure on the racing point 

- A THIRD safety car because of Kimi 

- Lewis trying to get Max at the last minute. As if. 

- Seb wins, Charles in second, Max in third. Ie the best people on a podium of all time. Now I’d only they were in the right order 

ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

There are some things that leave you with this irrepressible feeling in your gut that you've just witnessed an event that will go down in history. The 2019 Italian Grand Prix was one of those things.

Belgium was about loss. Italy was about triumph.

This weekend marks Charles Leclerc's second win at Ferrari, which makes it two straight weekends of wins in a row.

Finally, this is Charles' win and it's a win that he can celebrate. He did everything right, and with Seb spinning out at the beginning of the race, he did it all without a teammate to help. Mercedes threw everything at him and there was nothing they could do. He was unstoppable. He earned this.

People keep saying that Charles and all the younger drivers who have arrived on the F1 scene in the past couple of years are "the future". But take one look at that jubilant, never-ending crowd which stretched towards the horizon as Charles took the top step of the podium in Monza and you'll know right away: the future is here. And it's Charles.

See below for my race notes.

Free Practice 1

- Charles being strapped into his car for the first one as an F1 winner 

- The camera went on Charles in the garage and he was coughing but then smiled and waved to show he was happy and ok 

- Max is going to have to start from the back of the grid from penalties 

- Spa and Monza are the two hardest races on engines so reliability is starting to fail 

- Kimi has a bad spin into the wall and red flag to clean it up 

- Sainz spun 

- I freaking love when Norbert Vettel shows up. Crofty calls him "Father Vettel"

- Perez gone rearwards into the barrier. Scary. Session red flagged.

- This rain is really messing with people.

- Crofty calls this session so far the equivalent of Bambi on Ice.

- Pierre Gasly has been beached on a bump and he did a good job getting it back on  track and handling it but they did red flag it for a third time 

- There’s no point in listing all the people that spin or go off this session because it happens constantly

Free Practice 2

- not a lot going on this session, it’s mostly rained out 

Free Practice 3

- officially no chance of rain today after all the rain yesterday

- Session starts at regular time but the pit exit will remain closed because they’re still cleaning up a bad F3 crash from this morning in the parabolica. So nobody can go out until they open the exit 

- Ok there’s crashes and then there’s THAT F3 CRASH, WHAT WAS THAT?? Most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen and it basically flew I to space. Thank God they’re taking the curb out that launched him into space for the rest of the weekend 

- Peoples times are getting deleted for exceeding track limits 

Quali 

- Ferrari is so confident for Q1 that they’re using the medium tires while everyone else is on softs so that Ferrari can have a fresh soft tire to change into later

- For some reason Renault is incredibly fast in Q1 

- Q1 red flagged with 4 minutes left because Perez’s Mercedes powered engine died again just like last week

- Albon having a really hard time keeping it within track limits 

- Out in Q1: Grosjean, Perez, the two Williams and Maxy because they put him out at the end because he was going to start at the back anyway.

- The surprise is that Stroll made it into Q2 

- Maxy reported losing power as soon as they put him out in Q1 which isn’t so bad because he was going to start at the back anyway but it’s a cause for concern for the race 

- Gasly wouldn’t help Kvyat get a toe

- Out in Q2: Gio, Mag, Kvy, Nor and Gas 

- This is so weird because Lance Stroll is in Q3

- Q3 is a complete mess with the toes because nobody is where they should be Kimi put it in the barrier again for the second day in the row and Q3 is red flagged while they clean it up. Then they’ll start Q3 again with 6.5 min to left 

- This little child had "Leclerc" written on his face and I think we should all adopt this style

- The last six minutes of this were some of the most chaotic and stressful qualifying I’ve ever seen. Everyone waited until someone else went out first and then Renault blinked first and everyone filed out but then the Renault in front which was Hulk cut around a side road to avoid being first which was crafty and then the pack slowed down so he would emerge in front again and then that cost them 10 seconds so none of them got to the line to actually put down another time before the end of the session except Carlos Sainz who was way slower than Charles and so Charles good lap before ended up being his only timed lap and thus he got pole

- Charles got pole 2 weeks in a row and the reception for him at Monza was that of a king and it was a beautiful thing to see

- I’ve never seen THAT much confusion at the end of the Quali 

- Race control just put a blanket statement over this last part of Quali and said « the last lap of qualifying is under investigation » 

- Charles came over the radio at the end and was like « what a mess » 

Pre-Race 

- Still no one is over that insane qualifying 

- The tension here is so high and you can tell history is about to be made

- Finally it’s a Ferrari feature instead of a Mercedes 

- Kimi starts in the pit lane cause he crashed out

- Perez has new engine 

- They have a countdown clock 

- This is the only place where the national anthem is this big of a deal 

- They had a cool plane flyover that did the Italian flag with smoke

- I love Lando’s bright yellow Rossi bucket hat 

Race 

- this event feels like a holy day honestly. There’s that much weight to this 

- Max out in a big crash in the back which we haven’t seen yet

- Charles keeps the lead yes!!!

- Seb got stuck behind Hulk and now he’s in 5th but then Seb took it back 

- Daniel is in 5th and moved on his teammates

- there's this insane thing where SEB SPINS FOR NO REASON and rejoins the track right as Stroll's coming by, hits him, then Stroll has to rejoin, and then nearly takes out Gasly. Unbelievable.

- Seb gets 10 second time penalty for rejoining unsafely which I hate to say it but that was totally fair

- Kimi under investigation for starting on the wrong tires

- Maxy up to 16th by lap 14 but he’s having power issues again, whyyy

- Lance gets a drive through penalty because Seb caused the problem but then Lance did the same thing that Vettel did

- 5 second penalty for Albon for passing off the track on Kmags 

- Kimi gets penalty for starting on wrong tires

- Mercedes pitted Hamilton exactly when Charles lost back tire life 

- Charles kept Hamilton at bay and now they showed Charles a black and white flag so a warning, not a penalty, was sufficient they said but he didn’t do anything wrong so????

- Sainz left the pit lane with a loose tire, haven’t seen that in a while, and now there’s a virtual safety car to remove it 

- Kvyat out from a Honda engine thing. It’s smoking. And then another virtual safety car while they clear it 

- Lewis locked up and went through the runoff area trying too hard to get Charles and it let Bottas ahead and now Bottas is in 2nd chasing Charles 

- Kmags retires and we don’t know why 

- Mercedes gave it everything, absolutely everything they had, and they couldn't do a thing about Charles, future champion. This is a legendary drive. This is going down in history.

- CHARLES WINS AT MONZA!!!! This ends a 9 year dry spell for Ferrari at Monza. The last time a Ferrari driver won in Italy was Alonso in 2010. CHARLES WINS 2 WEEKS IN A ROW, the first win was his maiden win! Last week's celebrations were muted because of the loss of his friend. But that is not the case today. Today, Charles is king of Italy.

- ALL OF ITALY SHOWED UP TO CELEBRATE CHARLES' WIN. The podium crowd was... wow. His family is there in the front watching. It was a hero's win. It was a hero's drive. I am in the midst of history being made. This young man has the greatest destiny ahead of him and you can feel it when you see him. Unbelievable. Moving. A day of indomitability and celebrations. A truly historic moment.