BELIGAN GRAND PRIX

Two weekends ago in Belgium, Charles Leclerc dedicated his first F1 win to his friend and French F2 driver Anthoine Hubert, who died in a fatal accident there on Saturday. When Charles won on Sunday, he got out of his car and pointed to the sky. This hugely affected me and I was torn between the loss of a brilliant young man who se F2 career was inspiring to watch and the triumph and humility of this future champion who had just won his first F1 race. Tragedy and triumph came face to face for me here.

This is so much more than a sport. These are lives.

That's what I think this weekend in Belgium has come to mean for me. That moment when Charles, wearing his black armband, pointed to the sky is a moment I know I will never forget.

Charles Leclerc is now an F1 race winner, which was always his destiny. The future is here.

See my notes on the weekend below.

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Race Weekend dates: August 30 - September 1, 2019*

*Sorry this post is so delayed. I was overwhelmed by the double header right after the month-long summer break.

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Free Practice 1

- first thing you see is the big story: Alex Albon promoted to Red Bull over the summer break and Pierre back in the Toro Rosso OH MY GOSH the drama 

- Daniel is picking up 2 five place grid penalties for this weekend 

- So much news broke over the race. Albon promoted to Red Bull, Pierre demoted to Toro, Bottas announced another year, then announced Ocon is going to be Daniel’s teammate at Renault next year and now Hulk needs a seat

- Latifi is sitting in for George Russell at Williams this session 

- Hamilton’s just replaced his engine and now it’s already dying

- Virtually the whole field is in line for grid penalties this weekend

- Who is this deep voices Scottish man commentating that I don’t recognize? 

- Stroll lost a bunch of parts that went flying behind his car

- Will Grosjean or Hulk go to Haas next year? 

- Ericsson got called in as a reserve driver for Sauber cause Kimi hurt himself motocrossing but then it turned out that he wasn’t needed at Spa so then he missed an Indycar race for no reason 

Free Practice 2

- Charles is fined 600 euros for “speeding in the pit lane”

- Had get lance out of his car because he smells burning but everyone was kind of like why isn’t he getting out that car faster 

- Perez’s car is on fire and it was not a good reaction for him 

Free Practice 3

- HAMILTON IS IN THE WALL! Medical car deployed and possible need for chassis change which would mean a pit lane start which would be WONDERFUL

Quali

- Q1, Kubica is pulling over with smoke pouring out of back and now it’s on fire. That’s the second Mercedes powered car this weekend that has caught on fire for no foreseeable reason. Almost the exact same thing as happened to Perez!! 

- Now a bunch of people are crowding in front of Charles garage like the FIA is gonna have a problem with only this Ferrari again 

- Max reporting a problem

- Gio has an engine blow and a big puff of smoke and a red flag with 43 seconds left in Q1 and so that cuts off everyone cause Q1 won’t be restarted and Maxy just got through thank God.

- So the last five, Gasly Sainz Kvyat Russell and Kubica, are out. The surprise there is Sainz Start of Q2 delayed so they can clean up Gio’s car Out in Q2: Grosjean, Norris, Stroll, Albon, Gio Charles sets the fastest overall at end of Q2

- Charles on pole for the third time!! Then Seb, then Hamilton 

- NOW DON'T MESS THIS UP FERRARI

Pre-Race

- Antoine Hubert was tragically killed in the F2 race the day before and they did a tribute to him and moment of silence 

Race

- Max and Kimi collide on the first lap and Max didn't leave Kimi space so he drives for a little longer then the car dies and he has to stop, so Max is out on the first lap, heartbreak

- Kimi is not happy about Max hitting him

- Max getting out right away is certainly the home race curse

- Sainz is just parked on the side

- People were getting shunted left and right on the first lap

- nobody said anything about Lance Stroll running straight into people on the first lap like we've all just gotten used to it

- Lap 27 / 44 and it seems like Ferrari is going to screw this up again because even though Charles kept the lead, they pitted Seb first and you usually pit the leader first to avoid an undercut, but they pitted Seb first so now they have to radio in and tell Seb to let Charles back in front. But this whole stress would have been avoided if they had just pitted the right person first

- Seb5 is the best teammate on the grid right now, hands down, for just supporting Charles like this

- There's an incredibly stressful Charles / Hamilton battle for like FOREVER in this race

- CHARLES WINS FOR THE FIRST TIME! AFTER HAVING AT LEAST TWO OTHER RACES STOLEN FROM HIM THIS SEASON BY NO FAULT OF HIS OWN

- Thank GOD Charles won today after the loss of his friend Anthoine. Now Charles will always remember Anthoine when he thinks of his first win.

- When Charles gets out of the car, he showed the camera the "Racing for Anthoine" sticker on the side of his car and pointed at the sky to show that he was dedicating this win to his friend. I don't think I"ll ever forget it for as along as I live.

- All the celebrations are muted because of the death of Anthoine. I am torn. this is the most emotional win I've ever seen.

- This is Ferrari's first win of the year and I am shocked that they didn't manage to screw it up.

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX

Tense. Stressful. Upsetting. All words that I would use to describe the situation of the race this weekend.

Qualifying was the best part of the weekend, when Max Verstappen, sweet and domineering wunderkind that he is, finally got pole. The surprising part wasn't that he finally got pole, but that he hadn't actually gotten it yet. He's won so many races, it's shocking he wasn't on pole before that, but I think that's a great testament to his driving ability since that means he's fought for the win every single time.

This weekend's race was no except to that fight that we all have come to expect from Max. There were moments where I actually couldn't watch, not because I Was afraid for Max's driving ability, but I was afraid of how much of an unfair advantage Mercedes has as well as the fact that Hamilton and Max were out front together, alone, within a second of each other for most of the race.

So, pros. Max got pole. I am thrilled. What a way to go into the summer break. The next big step for Max will be to convert pole to a win, which can't be far away.

And cons? Well, the Mercedes dominance is always a con.

But you can't talk cons without mentioning Ferrari. During the race, both Ferraris were a full second behind the pace, even though they were in third and fourth. This was especially puzzling considering how up for grabs pole was with both Ferraris performing well.

And then there's Pierre Gasly. But that's another story. I feel terrible for that poor man.

So now we go into the summer break with no Ferrari wins and another race of Hamilton as a winner.

But all is not lost. I'm certainly not done recovering from the wonderful, heart-wrenching stress of the German Grand Prix the weekend before this (will I ever be fully recovered?? Will anyone??), and I consider that the benchmark for the kinds of races I'm hoping for in the second half of the season.

See you all in Belgium at the end of the month!

Free Practice 1

- some more rain drama, will it rain won’t it rain

- Force India is having a nightmare session. Lance spun and so did Perez a bunch

- Bottas doesn’t have a lot of run time because something is wrong with his car, engine problems

- Max reporting some entry problems and sensitivity, did a big spin then put it back the right way and it was really cool 

Free Practice 2

- Bottas is back out and it seems he’s running again 

- Session red flagged for Albon hitting some grass and then sliding REAL hard and fast sideways into a tire barrier, hard enough that when it bounced back from the wall, it was off the ground

- Lots of delays because of rain but people got back out

Free Practice 3

- start of session delayed by 10 minutes so they can finish track work to clean up a huge oil spill from the F2 race this morning

- the footage of this is unreal, it doesn't feel like F1 at all. It's probably the second weirdest F1 one thing this year, after the Azerbaijan Oil Spill and Bridge Collision Debacle of 2019, which was glorious

- Practice 3 will be shortened because of the track work

- Less than a tenth of a second between the top three at the end of this session so quali is up in the air 

Quali 

- to buy: this Max fan’s wooden shoes painted blue with Max’s number on them 

- In Q1, Charles had a spin and hit the barrier with the back of his car and they can probably put a new rear wing and get him back out 

- Out in Q1, Russell, Perez, Daniel, Stroll and Kubica 

- Gio being investigated for impeding Lance Stroll.... 

- Perez blocked Daniel after Daniel tried to buy some clear space

- Russell did a great qualifying of 1.5 sec faster than Kubica, Russell in 15th, Kubica in 20th 

- Maxy has a real chance for pole in Q3

- MAX ON POLE FOR THE FIRST TIME YESSSSSSS then Bot then Ham 

For some reason, our DVR didn't record a Grid Walk or Pre-Race Show.... this is the second time this has happened this year with no explanation. They didn't play one in America I guess?

Race

- MAX KEEPS FIRST at the start and has the two Mercedes squabbling behind him 

- Ham ruthlessly trying to get past Bottas and we think Ham damaged Bottas car but it was actually Charles who drifted into him a little but the FIA said no investigation necessary 

- Bottas has to pit because of damage and they have a bad pit stop replacing the front wing  and he comes out plumb last 

- Gasly is someone in 9th right now after a bad start from 6th I think. Unbelievably not good 

- By lap 13, Gasly is still in 8th

- Daniel has a terrible start in last after an engine change which they did after qualifying terribly so they figured why not 

- Max and Lewis are pulling away from Charles in 3rd and by lap 14, Charles is already 10 seconds behind the leader

- They’re almost a second off the pace at Ferrari every lap even though they’re in 3 and 4 

- Lots of worries about when to pit Max so they don’t let Lewis ahead but they managed it 

- Norris and Albon have really bad pit stops where a tire doesn’t go on fast enough 

- There was a terrifying time where it looked like Ham was going to get past but then he over tried and shot off and then came back on and then after he was complaining about how he couldn’t do more and couldn’t keep the pressure on 

- Seb has a terrible pit stop too, what’s going on today 

- Mercedes pitted Hamilton and Red Bull didn’t pit Max in front and this race feels soooo long because I’m so terrified that Ham could catch Maxy and something will happen 

- Grosjean retires for no specified reason, now has the most DNFs of any driver with 6 this season 

- Eventually, Hamilton does get past Max and Hamilton wins and Max takes second. Heartbreaking. But at least Max finally got pole.

GERMAN GRAND PRIX

You know at the end of Mean Girls when Regina George gets hit by the bus? And you feel bad because you don't want anyone to get hit by a bus, but at the same time, somewhere in you, you hoped for justice? Some kind of retribution?

Hamilton is the Regina George of autosport. And last weekend, Regina George got hit by the bus.

At the beginning of the weekend, I was dreading having to look at all the Mercedes advertising all over the Mercedes-sponsored track at Hockenheim, thinking it would be another weekend of their dominance.

And then came a gift from the Lord.

This weekend was utter humiliation for Mercedes at the Mercedes-sponsored track they put their name all over. It was a poetic reminder that this is Seb's house, no matter what anybody says.

This was also, quite possibly, the best race I've ever seen in my life. There wasn't a single boring second. This race is the race every F1 race should want to be.

Free Practice 1

- I love this lady’s “I heart Seb” sign 

- It’s like 90 degrees in this European heat wave 

- Ugh seriously are we going to have to look at Mercedes advertising all weekend

- I would say Bottas car looks really cool this weekend with no reservations if it wasn’t Mercedes

-  I really hope these high temps just melt the Mercedes 

- How dare Mercedes sponsor the German Grand Prix, don’t they know that this is Seb’s house????? 

- Wait why aren’t we coming back to Hockenheim for the foreseeable future?! This is news to me. What is it being replaced with?

- Gasly finally gets a clean lap together with 22 min left 

- They asked Seb why he thought they weren’t coming back to Germany and Seb was like “cash” and then just waited 

- Bottas almost slid and then Hamilton did the same thing at the same corner. They said that Bottas is overheating at both ends so hopefully that happens to Hamilton too 

- Seb’s dad is there again! Norbert Vettel. What a sweetie 

- Lots of talk about what kinds of season changes that are possible 

- Bottas has a bad lockup and goes into the gravel but keeps it out of the wall and then drives it back to the garage while showering the track with gravel

- Meanwhile Daniel had a bad spin

- A bunch of action in the last 2 minutes 

Free Practice 2 

- officially 40% chance of rain for this session 

- It’s 96 degrees Fahrenheit there. Wow 

- Charles pedals are too close to him and he has to go into the garage to get it adjusted 

- Charles has a nasty lap with the car going all over the place

- Ferrari just dropped Charles car off the jack in a practice pit stop. Seriously guys  

- Pierre just hit a wall and the car looks super wonky now and now there’s a red flag 

Free Practice 3

- So after all that all, it’s not even raining today so. 

- Max has sparkles on his helmet, yesss

- 60% chance of rain for this session now

- Risk of rain for quali has gone done now so it’s like down to 45% chance

- Bottas went off again but no damage 

- Everybody is getting their times deleted because all the sudden the FIA is taking track limits seriously which they weren’t yesterday and now everyone is going over one curb way wide cause they didn’t think track limits was in play. But the best part was that Hamilton’s time was deleted 

- Charles is dominating and keeping the top spot for himself this session.

- Max got in second though and if they have a battle for pole between the two of them I don’t know if my heart can take it 

- The president of Renault is there and they’re in the bottom five basically.

- Shocking Seb accidentally sort of hit a bird but basically missed it  

- Jan Magnussen is there 

Qualifying 

- Seb’s car has something burst on it and has to go into the garage in Q1 

- This was an INSANE Q1 and Seb got out of the car and didn’t qualify because of the mechanical problem they couldn’t fix. Apparently was turbo failure and it’s extremely bad news and will have to hope for a safety car or something 

- Ones out in Q1: Seb, Kubica, Russell, Albon and Norris

- Norris got in the way of Albon pretty badly and Norris wasn’t even on a hot lap they reported but then later they reported he was on a hot lap

- Hamilton had a terrible first fast lap and only made 13th which was awesome 

- Everything is totally mixed up in the field today which is great

- Charles and Max finished 1 and 2 in Q1

- Grosjean and Kvyat almost had a serious incident in the pit lane

- LOL lance stroll finally made it into Q2 

- Max reports a power loss on a straight and no one knows how bad it is going to be and he pits on orders without a time on the board with only 7.5 min to go in Q2

- They got Max out on track again with 5 min to go, should be plenty of time 

- Max puts down a time in fourth just in time

- Mercedes tried to tell Bottas to move over for Lewis and Bottas said no because he was on the faster tire so they had to both back off

- Magnussen has a terrible lockup 

- Out from Q2: Gio, Kmags, Daniel, Kvyat and Stroll

- At the start of Q3, there’s an FIA guy in Charles garage and he’s not out yet and people are working on his car and this came out of nowhere when Charles was looking at pole  

- CHARLES IS GETTING OUT OF HIS CAR IN Q3 WITHOUT SETTING A LAP BECAUSE WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SEB ALSO HAPPENED TO CHARLES NOOO so now he will start 10th and Seb starts last Maxy splits the two Mercedes 

Pre-Race

- OH IT'S RAINING 

- Ted is like “YES A WET RACE IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ALL YEAR” 

- Apparently Toto said that if they keep Bottas for next year is going to be decided in the next 2 races and this one is so wet 

- Just announced a safety car start 

Race 

- starting with a bunch of formation laps behind the safety car and it took forever and everyone was like let’s go but now they’re having a standing start like normal after this lap 

- Max had no grip at start and got stuck and a bunch of people passed but he stayed up front 

- Charles made up to 6th at the start

- Seb made up to 14th in first lap

- Bottas got ahead of Max at start 

- Perez spins on lap 3 and now there’s a safety car and everyone is going in changing from wets to intermediates

- Race has been shortened to 64 laps instead of 67 because of the added formation laps

- Pierre down in 19th after going wide

- Seb and Robert almost collided

- Charles and KMags having an insane fight

- Seb is already up to 8th on lap 8 

- Under investigation Charles and Grosjean because Charles was released right in front of Grosjean who had slam on his breaks during the safety car pit 

- Charles had a crazy slide through a slippery place but kept it on the track even though it would have been so easy to spin around 

- Daniel’s engine blew up and sprayed smoke everywhere and he parked it, triggered virtual safety car which allowed for a free pit stop for Charles 

- Carlos Sainz nearly puts it in the wall and goes skating across an ice rink of wet but gets back on track in 15th

- Ferrari gets a team fine for the Charles pit incident but he doesn’t get a penalty for the race CAN WE PLS JUST DO ONE THING CORRECTLY - THIS IS WHERE MY ORIGINAL NOTES END BECAUSE I JUST COULDN'T KEEP UP, here's the rest of my notes from the text messages with my sister

- Of course these Renaults are blowing up after that heat wave they sat through

- Charles is cruising now that he had his tires changed

- Lance Stroll just straight up pushed Kmags off the entire track

- Max got put on Mediums

- MAX DID THE FULL SPIN PERFECTLY AGAIN

- Everyone is shooting off everywhere

- Lando Norris's car just straight up died

- Charles goes in to get softs JUST as the VSC was ending and while Ham was in the pits

- BUT THEN THE WORST TURN OF EVENTS, CHARLES CRASHES OUT AND THE WALL CLAIMED HIS FERRARI AND IT DUG IN THE GRAVEL AND HE CAN'T GET OUT ON TRACK AGAIN AND IT WAS JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO TAKE THE LEAD

- FINALLY A DISASTER FOR MERCEDES, LEWIS BROKE HIS CAR, WENT INTO THE PITS ILLEGALLY AROUND THE BOLLARD WHEN HE WAS CLOSE TO THE ENTRANCE WHERE HE SPUN AND THEN THE TEAM WASN'T READY FOR HIM AND PEOPLE WERE TRIPPING OVER THEMSELVES TRYING TO GET THINGS CHANGED QUICKLY AND IT WAS MAYHEM, ABSOLUTE SHAMBLES, THE STOP TOOK OVER 40 SECONDS, WHAT A GIFT

- Max is leading the race!

- So. Many. Safety. Cars. SO MANY.

- HAHAHA HAMILTON GOT A 5-SECOND TIME PENALTY FOR UNSAFELY CROSSING THE TRACK YESSSSSSSSS

- Now Albon is blocking Lewis, this is poetry, yes Alex yes

- AND HAMILTON GO ANOTHER TIME PENALTY FOR GOING UNNECESSARILY SLOW BEHIND THE SAFETY CAR your antics won't work here!!!

- Max is just cruising out front and he has amazing rain driving

- Hulk crashes out in his home race

- Ferrari is just having a horrendous day with their pit stops

- Max on slicks!!

- NOW LANCE STROLL IS LEADING THE RACE, now we've seen everythingggggggg

- Albon just passed Pierre. This is so bad for Pierre. So bad.

- Lewis is complaining from 12th, incredibleeeee

- Now Hamilton has completely given up since he's in 12th so he won't try any more

- LEWIS WENT OFF AGAIN YESSS

- KMAGS AND GROSJEAN HIT AGAIN just like last race, Gunther is going to be LIVID, this is incredible

- It's absurd that Lance Stroll is still in this race

- Pierre just ran into Albon, are you kidding me

- Seb got Lance and Sainz so now See is in 2nd, I can't believe how close we got to having Lance Stroll on the podium, which would have really been an unbelievable turn of events

- NO BOTTAS CRASHED OUT at the very end, awwww

- MAX WINS, SEB in 2ND, and then Kvyat, who just became a father the day before?! What is happening?!

Post-Race

- Max, Seb and Kvyat talking in the cool down room while Max has a goghurt, this day has truly been full of blessings

- They didn't talk to Lewis, of course, because he was surely too pissed after the race to even talk to anybody, throwing a fit because he didn't win

- this was a rollercoaster