BRITISH GRAND PRIX

You'll notice there aren't as many notes about this race. You might think that means that this was an uneventful weekend. Um, exactly the opposite.

There are fewer notes because I couldn't look away from the TV for even a second without missing something amazing. This was, easily, the best race of the season so far. This is what Formula 1 is all about.

Okay, so unfortunately, yes, Hamilton won in the end. My one goal for this weekend was for the home race curse to come through just once when I actually needed it - instead of targeting Charles in Monaco and Daniel in Australia - but, instead, Mercedes seems to have all the luck, as usual.

But let's not forget to reflect on the blessings from this weekend. First and foremost, the racing was actually good. This is way more important than the actual outcome and it draws attention to the fact that, up until this race, there's been something missing this season. It reminds me that I may have been settling for boring races and they should all be more like this one.

Second, Bottas stole pole from Hamilton at his home track. Yes, I was dying for Bottas to hold onto that lead, and he would have if it wasn't for that ridiculous safety car from Giovinazzi spinning off at exactly the wrong moment. How does everything always play into Hamilton's favor??? ...

Finally, we got to stare at 007-themed Red Bull cars all weekend and there's nothing I love more than a Bond - Red Bull crossover. Thanks, Aston Martin!

I can't wait to be back at Silverstone next year.

Free Practice 1 

- I love the British Grand Prix. It’s so nice that so many people who love this sport are at home 

- Obsessed with the 007 on the Red Bull wings. Apparently it’s there because it’s the 1007th world championship race

- This pit lane is so small. Like if it had just 2 more feet it would be great 

- Grosjean just spun around and knocked off his front wing at the end of the pit lane and everyone is just like ???????

- Bottas accidentally stopped at Grosjean’s box in the pit 

- New surfaces on the track means everyone is struggling for grip and everyone is spinning 

- Kimi’s engine went pop and shut down and now it’s a red flag to remove the Alpha from the track 

- Grosjean really struggling, spin on his first timed lap out It’s raining and combined with the slick of the new surfaces it’s incredibly slippery 

- Who are these sickos who have a "# Team Cyril" flag in the stands 

- People are in Charles’ way and I’m going to need these people to move 

Free Practice 2

- I LOVE the 007 theme for the Red Bull cars and wings for the British Grand Prix 

- Red Bull put 00 in front of Max and Pierre’s numbers on their tv screen to be more Bond which I love 

- Charles reporting tire degradation on front left and everyone trying to figure out what’s happening 

- Everybody flying off on one corner because of wind 

- Hamilton going over the grass a lot which was my favorite part so far 

- This front left deg problem is happening on everybody so it’s not just Charles

- Virtual safety car because Daniel’s car just complete power loss 

- Daniel riding his car back to the side of the track as he steers it 

- Charles radioed in and demonstrated the exact sound the tires were making 

Free Practice 3

- it’s rainy and moist

- Not a lot going on here at all 

- Charles fastest at the end 

Quali

- Charles put it at the top of the times by a long shot in Q1 

- Out in Q1: Kubica, Russell, Stroll, Kvyat and kMags at the last minute when Perez just got through 

- Out in Q2, Gio, Raikkonen, Sainz, Grosjean, and Perez 

- There has got to be something wrong with Seb’s car because he reports that he can’t get the DRS open and then pits and puts him on the fastest tire on the softs and then had him go out and go as fast as he can and he just made it through on the last second but if he’d made a single mistake he couldn’t have made it to Q3

- Bottas stole pole from Hamilton YESSS and then Charles in 3rd!

- It looked like Charles was gonna roast everyone at the last minute but then he didn’t 

- that little girl’s face when Hamilton didn’t get pole was priceless

Race 

- Bottas stays in front at the start

- Both Haas cars rubbed against each other and both got rear punctures and they’re still in race but now they’re both last

- Hamilton desperately trying to get ahead and does for a minute but then Bottas stole it back YES he kept a cool head and just took it back right away

- Lando bumped Gasly at the start 

- Kmags retires on lap 8 from the earlier contact with Grosjean 

- Max and Charles are so evenly matched and it’s INSANE. The future is NOW.

- Gio took it into the gravel and Hamilton pits under safety car and so Seb pits too 

- Hulk shredded Perez’s wing

- There has been the most insane racing between Charles and Max that I’ve ever seen in my life 

- Grosjean also retired like forever ago but I didn’t even see it because so much was happening 

- Charles passing Gasly was pure champion stuff and everyone is so impressed how clean it was 

- Max got past Vettel and then Seb hit the back of Max and they both went flying into the gravel and then amazingly they both got back on the track. And Max was in the air and stuff and it was amazing 

- Seb had a 10 second time penalty 

- They told Hamilton to pit and he didn’t. If only his tires had exploded

- After all that Ham won and it was so over dramatic 

- This was, by far, the best race of the year so far. I simply couldn't take my eyes off the TV. THIS is what Formula 1 is all about.

Post-Race

- Charles in 3rd said this was his favorite race of his Formula 1 career so far because the racing between him and Max was so good. That just makes my heart so happy.

AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX

When you are rooting for two champions, you sometimes get a painful reminder that there's only one top step of the podium. And it can't be shared.

Every time I am about to scream with happiness for Red Bull's maiden win of 2019, I think of Charles Leclerc's heartbroken face standing on the second step of the podium. But every time I am about to sob over another win slipping away from Charles, I think of glowing smile on Max Verstappen's face as he raised the winner's trophy over his head.

When you are devoted to two stars of the future, as I am in Max and Charles, you tend to get swept up considering the blissful hope of tomorrow. Imagine what it will be like with those two drivers at the top of their game!

But, in light of recent events, I wish I'd looked up from my crystal ball for a second to be able to see that there was going to be more to the future than easy wins and unconditional camaraderie.

This was bound to happen sooner or later.

Honestly, I don't know when I was ever this conflicted about a race outcome. The desire for Max to win again in Austria and the hope that Charles would get that first win of his career were, in every way, completely equal.

The outcome of this race has turned into a verifiable emotional enigma.

However, if I were to put this crisis aside for a second, I have to concede that this weekend was just some good, old-fashioned racing.

Just when I thought we were in for another round of eventless Free Practice sessions, Free Practice 2 came storming in like... like Bottas into that barrier. For Max to go into the barrier that badly was unbelievable. But for Bottas to crash that badly was shocking. And then for Seb to avoid flying into the wall was one step down from a miracle. I haven't shouted over a practice session that much in a long time.

I also want to take this opportunity to say, "God bless Kimi Raikkonen." This is the man who complained to the stewards which resulted in Lewis Hamilton finally being given a penalty. It was paradise to watch an F1 race and not have to look at or think about that man (except when he was complaining on the radio... like usual). If only we were this blessed every weekend.

And thank goodness this was an exciting race again. After the sleep-inducing race in France, Austria was exactly what I needed.

Here are my notes from this weekend's sessions:

Free Practice 1

- Albon starting race with penalties 

- Bottas car has oil leak so change power unit 

- Max is first to go out 

- Seb’s dad is there! 

- They’re discussing why some teams have crooked pit stop lines 

- Nothing is going on

- Stroll just slid over a sausage curb and sprayed parts everywhere 

- Max’s helmet has a yellow design now, it must be a Jumbo yellow thing

- Session red flagged because Hulk lost the front left of his wing and dragged debris everywhere 

- Basically nothing happened

Free Practice 2

- Stroll goes off and throws off body work AGAIN just like he did this morning 

- Pierre goes through the gravel

- The Renault’s have front wings shaking and it’s a safety issue but no one has got on team radio to tell them not to use DRS 

- MAX went into a corner and it’s a big big shunt and there could be gearbox damage. Medical car deployed. Slid into the wall with the rear. Session red flagged. Rear damage is really bad. Max just swearing after in radio message. He’s okay though thank God.

- Max told Martin that he lost the rear before getting on the motorbike to go back. Now Maxy is jogging back to the garage. Yikes the car is so broken in the back. All the photographers are getting snaps of the broken car and it could expose secrets. Poor poor Max. 

- Oh my gosh as soon as they went green again Bottas went hard into Turn 6 and totally wrecked the front end of his Mercedes. Red flag again. Right through the gravel and got a head on collision with the carriers. Debris everywhere. A little wider into the turn and put the right wheels slightly off line and it snapped the car the other way and it went head on in the wall. Medical car deployed. Geez! They’re saying they’ve never seen a Mercedes that out of shape in this era.

- Seb radioed to ask if Bottas was okay 

- NOW SEB HAS GONE OFF and has gotten back on the track and it threw Seb right into the turn through the gravel but kept it out of the wall by a tiny bit and it was so so close and it was the same turn Max got thrown out of THIS IS CRAY

- Mercedes cover their car to bring it back into the garage cause they’re soooo secretive

- Still a ton of rear wing oscillation on both Renault back wings 

- Sainz went off where Bottas went off but he caught it before going into the wall. Not as bad as anyone else and he took it real slow into the gravel

- Gio blocked Charles and nearly caused a crash and the stewards said it’s noted but no investigation necessary 

- Charles reporting there’s something wrong with the engine and the pit says it’s fine but Charles feels something wrong 

Free Practice 3

- Pierre had to come in because no power and it’s a software issue

- Charles on an EXCELLENT lap of triple purples

- Jos is there 

- Grosjean had a little lockup and escapade into a turn but it’s fine 

- Patrick Dempsey is there talking to Jos and being hosted by Red Bull which makes me like him

- Stroll kicked up a huge cloud of dust and damaged the front of his car 

- Gio did same thing as Lance Stroll and damaged front wing 

Quali

- Pierre lost power in 2nd part of his lap but put a really good time down initially 

- there’s stuff breaking off Hulk’s rear wing plate

- Mercedes under pressure in Q1 because the track is ramping up 

- Kvyat came steaming into a blind corner and then found three cars around the turn and may have been impeded by George Russell 

- In Q2, Grosjean has to box because of front wing damage 

- In Q2, at the end, Kmags went off at a turn and into the gravel and messed up Lando’s lap 

- After Q3, there’s an FIA steward in Seb’s garage while mechanics are looking at something worriedly on the side 

- NOW Seb out of Q3 for unexplained reasons, we can only assume something broke, although there are whispers that maybe Ferrari changed something they should have had when they were already supposed to be in parc ferme

- Ham sabotaged Bottas by leaving him out to dry in Q3, RUDE

- Charles on pole!!

- Officially Ham second and Max 3rd, with Bottas in 4th but then Ham got a grid penalty for blocking Kimi (God bless Kimi) and now Ham starts 4th I think because of a two place grid penalty. There was something where it should have been three place penalty but with all the other penalties in play through the field, it ended up only being a two place

Pre-race 

- so many Max fans!!

- a Max and Charles scene cut together at the beginning of the show

- Youngest front row in the history of F1 

- Milo Ventimiglia is there

- Patrick Dempsey is really cool and loves racing 

- Martin Brundle is just raving about how amazing Charles is and I totally agree 

- This national anthem is like a rock concert

Race

- Charles keeps 1st but Max drops back to 8th even behind Gasly because his car stalled on start 

- Kmags under investigation for being out of position at the start 

- Kmags gets a drive through penalty for being out of position at start 

- Lando and Kimi doing some good racing 

- Ham constantly going over a bad curb and he’s not gaining time for it 

- Bottas pitted with Seb right behind him and it held up Bottas but then they weren’t ready for Seb so it took longer so in the end it was a 6 second pit stop and the tires weren’t ready and now they’re furious with themselves 

- Charles pit stop good 

- Ham was complaining about front wing and made the team change it and it meant his pit stop was 11 seconds and if only we were this blessed every day 

- Max passed Seb into 3rd!

- Why is Seb pitting again???

- Max storming!!

- Max reports losing power as he gained on Bottas 

- They gave Max a fail mode that fixed it 

- Max passes Bottas!!

- Max passed Charles with 3 laps to go and won! The entire place erupted with the raucous energy of the oranje army! Glorious

- this podium tension between Max and Charles was totally understandable but also it hurt me DEEPLY.

- I have never been so conflicted about an outcome in my life because I want both Charles and Max to win always but I really wanted this for Charles today but I am so proud of Max

FRENCH GRAND PRIX

If you watch enough TV, you slowly learn how a TV show will spread out the really exciting episodes. For every two slow episodes, there's one that's insanely exciting.

I guess that's how things are with F1, too. With all the drama of the Canadian Grand Prix, the slowness of the French Grand Prix is only to be expected. Still, I would not have wanted to pay for a paddock club pass to the French GP at Circuit Paul Ricard this year and have that race be what I paid for. It just wasn't entertaining.

Last year, we took a siblings trip to Paul Ricard during the F1 French GP, we were really fortunate to have a really exciting race that weekend. Part of that was probably because 2018 was the golden year of F1 with Daniel and Max both still at Red Bull, but also the races last year seem to be way more consistently exciting than the ones this year have been so far.

I enjoyed seeing Circuit Paul Ricard again, with all of it's weaving red and blue lines that make your TV set go all jumbled, but I do wish this weekend could have been a fraction as exciting as Canada was.

At least we're in for the summer double header coming up next weekend. Hopefully, this weekend's lack of excitement will mean it's saving up for next weekend's Austrian Grand Prix.

FP1 

- we were there last year!! 

- Ferrari is asking the Canadian stewards to review the penalty again 

- Since when has Sirotkin been Renault reserve driver?? 

- Charles reporting his front right tire is already striped after 5 minutes out, can somebody please just GET HIM A TIRE PLEASE

- Seb is running the new front wing and Charles is running the old one, why am I not surprised 

- Kvyat is gonna start from the back of the grid this race because he basically has a new car. The list just went on and on 

- Kvyat spins at turn five

- Lewis apparently didn’t show up for press day on Thursday because he was at a fashion show in Paris. A FASHION show.

- Latifi from F2 is running in Russell’s car at Williams 

- The floors of the Renault are rubbing against the track and causing the car to smoke. I’m having McClaren Indy500 Quali flashbacks 

- There is no grip at all and people are spinning everywhere

- Seb also reporting bad tires so at least it’s both Ferrari’s 

- Seb got married!!!! 

- Ok hang on. Danill kvyat is having a baby with Nelson Piquet’s daughter??? Where is all this drama coming from?!?

- Max has a little spin at turn 6 but he’s fine

- Charles apparently went to sit in the commentary box after the Canadian Grand Prix so he could stay out of everybody’s way 

- LBP has a big spin 

FP2 

- The FIA haven’t told us if they are going to respond to the Ferrari appeal for Canada and I have no confidence they will do a single thing about it but it would be such good drama if it did 

- Part of all the spins is that the track was recently resurfaced and also all the pollen sitting on the track. When it’s first resurfaced last year,  super grippy but then it degraded really fast

- Grosjean locked up really bad and ruined a set of hard tires and he only had two sets for this weekend to begin with 

- Hamilton collected a bollard and went off he track, rejoined inappropriately and then threw off Max’s fast lap, which caused Max to go off to take evasive action 

- Everyone’s like "didn’t hamilton just do exactly what he was complaining Vettel did in Canada that resulted in the penalty???" drama 

FP3 

- It’s so hot and it’s causing the tires to melt on the new track surface

- Renault apparently is using Red Bull as a reference. Which makes Daniel’s betrayal even worse 

- Renault is like super under pressure here *rubs hands together in expectation of failure* this’ll be good 

- Paul says there’s rumors that Kubica will be replaced by Latifi next year because people expected more from his return to F1  

- Helmut Marko says the Pirelli tires are favoring Mercedes because they’re made for cars with the most downforce so basically Williams is screwed 

- Daniel has a little off track escapade 

- Charles did a BLISTERING lap just .083 down from the top time by Bottas and everyone was like woah where did that come from 

- Charles top time of 1:31:118! It’s .2 higher than Bottas

- McLaren is really performing well on this track 

- Hamilton stole the top time back by less than 0.0 

- Max having grip issues

- George Russell has something wrong and limped back and he’s been in the garage 5 minutes and they don’t know what’s wrong 

- Somethings happened with Seb’s seatbelt and they can’t take the halo off so the mechanics have to get in there in a weird way and it’s funny 

- Hulk just called Perez "Jésus Perez"

Quali

- Kimi went off but he’s fine 

- Max had a bad lap and was in danger of being out in Q1 and had to go again but now he’s 5th so he should be fine and they did it with plenty of time left 

- Charles giving everyone runs for their money and has been consistently faster than Seb. Charles keeps everyone on their toes 

- There’s some sort of Kimi / Daniel incident, also Grosjean, that happened in Q1 that’s under investigation but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal 

- How the heck is George Russell getting a 15 place grid penalty? Like what did he even do? He only got some new parts, geez 

- Ok now Max is in danger again at the end of Q1, why does this keep happening 

- Out in Q1: Kubica, Williams, Grosjean, Stroll 

- MAX WAS 14th before the end of Q1, that was WAY too close 

- People getting in each other’s way left and right in Q1 here 

- Nice Nico is there!!! Love him

- Hahaha Stroll is out in Q1 and Perez is like ends in 5th or something. .7 behind his teammate 

- For Q2, Red Bull has confidence to put Max on harder slower tire but not LBP.... 

- One of Maxy’s lap times got nulled because of « exceeding track limits » but it didn’t end up mattering because he put another good one down. But still. Ridiculous 

- Seb genuinely saying he wasn’t trying to hold up Charles on the radio when Charles radioed in worried he wouldn’t make it to the line to start his last lap 

- Albon, Kimi, Hulk, Perez and Mag out in Q2

- LBP was way close to getting out in Q2 

- everyone’s like Gasly is way off the pace from his teammate again

- Hahah Grosjean swearing in the pen and they had to bleep it 

- Lance Stroll looks like he has no idea what happens in a car when he talks 

- in Q3, Seb forced to pit because of a missed upshift. He pulled for an upshift and the car didn’t do it 

- at end of Q3, ham on pole, Bottas in 2nd, Charles starting 3rd!!

- Vettel starting 7th? So that’s bizarre, his Quali was miserable. 2 McLarens starting 5 and 6! Max starting 4th, next to Charles

- GET OUT OF CHARLES POST RACE INTERVIEW LEWIS

Race 

- at start, Charles really gave the 2 Mercedes a run for their money 

- Perez went off and is being investigated for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, which I actually think is so stupid. He must be so mad

- Max reporting engine problems and now it’s fixed 

- Hamilton reports engine issues but I think it’s a ruse 

- those Mclarens kept Seb at bay for several laps impressively

- Perez got a 5 sec penalty even though he went the right way around the bollard though they gave him the penalty for gaining a place 

- Ham reports there’s something wrong with his seat 

- Daniels drink is not hooked up

- Norris having hydraulic issues in the McLaren 

- Grosjean just had to retire out of nowhere but it’s likely the Home Race Curse 

- Virtual safety car so someone can retrieve a bollard that rolled on track and it seems Albon hit it originally

- It got exciting at the very end with Daniel passing Norris who had issues and then Charles gave Bottas a really good run but stayed third 

-Seb stole fastest lap at the last minute 

- Daniel’s pass on Norris was so reckless and 2 other cars were involved so it’s under investigation 

- overall this was another one one of those super boring races. Not as bad as China or Spain but still pretty nothing. The only thing that kept it interesting was the we visited that track last year and when it got a bit exciting at the end