AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

Hello, and welcome to the first race of the Formula 1 season! Australia has always been the first race since I've watched and so we started a bit of a tradition. Since my family are US viewers, the Australian GP weekend happens in the middle of the night for us, so we watch the race live on Sunday morning, which usually ends up being around 12 am or 1 am. It's like watching a royal wedding, but so much better.

This weekend's long-awaited event in Melbourne was a rollercoaster. Check out my thoughts below, sorted by event.

They're not racing in Sydney, but this is pretty.

Thoughts during FP1:

- Woo! First event of the season! We're officially back and there's that First-Day-of-School Feeling

- Looking at the lineup names and color bars , I've never been more disoriented in my whole life

- why is Haas suddenly a gold bar and what were they before?

- Daniel's pastel helmet, yes

- Seb's moustache!! Wow I'm shocked. I love that he did that. Obviously the mustache has to go but I love that he did it.

- Hm these driver photos seem highly unflattering and everyone looks like artists renderings of cavemen

- The only spins / crashes were Alex Albon (who I know nothing about) at Toro Rosso and Bottas. Albon just did a spin into the wall and Franz Post looked like "really, day 1, event 1, you put it in the wall". Bottas spun very precariously after catching some grass but, against all odds, he didn't put it in the wall.

- Charles Leclerc in that Ferrari is such a thing of beauty and it makes me feel like dreams do come true. He was putting the times up there right next to Seb.

- Mostly FP1 was just the feeling of a preview of what's to come

Thoughts during FP2:

- All the rookies were sliding everywhere, especially Alex Albon, but George Russell and Antonio Giovinazzi also spun.

- Giovinazzi got int he way and ruined one of Max's fast laps. I know he's new there, so I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I still have to say that was lame.

- Charles radioed in saying there was something wrong with the car and a few minutes later, he spun and there was only like a minute and a half left in the session. So that was sad. But he had just said something was wrong, so I think it's really good he can sense that in the car.

- After Charles spun, the announcers were saying "oh, is he gonna lose sleep over that now that he's at Ferrari" and all this similar speculation demanding to know if he's good enough to deserve that seat. Um, okay, let me put that to rest right now. This kid is going to be a world champion. Maybe not this year, but someday. He's already proven he should be there just by being in that seat. I think one of the commentators summed it up really nicely, saying, "Nothing fazes this kid."

Thoughts during FP3:

- why are these times looking so out of place

- we can't be seeing everyone's full hand here, especially Red Bull, who have been so slow.

- No big action to repot

- ....Is it race time yet??

Thoughts during Qualifying:

- Pierre Gasly is out in Q1, qualifying 17th?????? OK but

- Max got in the top 5, but not without scaring me that they just had no speed this weekend at Red Bull. Early on, they said there was some fuel problem or they had to change the tank or chassis or something, so maybe it could be related?

- Kimi in his Sauber (actually, Alpha Romeo now) kept jumping to the top of the times and stayed in till Q3. I love Kimi. Kimi could do this in his sleep.

- Charles was fastest of all in Q1

- Yeah, I still needed the Ferraris to be faster than they were though

- Bottas got me all excited that he was going to beat Hamilton's time for pole and then he had a bad sector time at the last minute.........

- LOL at Stroll out in Q1 and Perez in Q3

- Apparently, there's a little kid that famously called Daniel Ricciardo "Daniel Avocado" and they showed this kid decked out for quali day and it so adorable.

- Overall result: Pole - Ham, 2 - Bottas, 3 - Vettel

- Overall summary: Not good for Red Bull. Ferrari is capable of so much more. Please don't let the Mercedes domination repeat this year.

Thoughts during Pre-Race:

- wow I missed Martin's Grid Walk

- They started the season with a feature of Max and Pierre at the beach with Damon Hill and a surfing legend. Max wouldn't get in the water for fear of sharks and I am so proud of him for that.

THOUGHTS DURING THE RACE:

- Daniel drove right through some kind of hidden service divet in the track along the pit straight and it looked like he really broke the car. He just lost the wing right away, not even out of the pit straight. Totally thought he was just going to be out of the race, but they changed the wing and kept going...

- Bottas got ahead of Hamilton right away from the start

- Lap 8 - why is Pierre in a Red Bull still in 16th behind Kvyat in a Toro Rosso?

- Oops Car #16 you're in the grass. That's okay, Charles, we all make mistakes sometimes.

- ok this media stance that keeps trying to feed me lines about the new and improved "mature" Daniil Kvyat just makes me angry. Unless I see proof of this, I don't think anything is any different than it was before. Same old thing.

- So all the sudden, Crofty starts wshouting that Charles Leclerc had a problem and I'm panicking and then it turned out that Charles' transponder just went out, which caused it to look like he was at the end of the lineup, but it wasn't true. Nothing had changed and he was still in 5th. That scare was RUTHLESS but I'm so glad it was only a scare. I really couldn't handle anything else after that.

- so, anyway, Carlos Sainz was just minding his own business, driving his car on a lovely cool day like he was supposed to do, and then all of the sudden his McClaren starts smoking and goes up in flames - literal flames. They said it was a MGUK issue, but I really want to point my finger at their Renault engine. Right now, no one should have Renault engines. Its fine if Renault wants to risk their own drivers, but I don't trust them giving engines to anyone else.

- Wow. This pit lane is just too small. Nobody can get out.

- omg, Grosjean for Haas has ANOTHER wheel pit stop failure, just like last year. That pit stop took over 10 seconds and the front left wouldn’t go on. I'm having serious 2018 deja vu.

- Alex Albon fighting with Grosjean after the pit was very scary. I’m getting the impression he’s been ruthless all weekend.

- Kevin Magnussen squeezed Gio and it was so close.

- Daniel being lapped by Bottas race leader was a tragedy for me personally

- Hamilton saying he didn’t think he could make it to the end of this race was totally baiting other drivers into the pits and not legit.

- Gio’s pitstop was over 8 seconds, so even worse than Haas. Man.

- Gio's dangerous driving is not impressing me this weekend. Maybe he's still learning like a rookie has to when they just get to F1. But it's still dangerous.

- Max went after Vettel and it was amazing. He passed Vettel with DRS.

- They retired Daniel at around lap 30 (which I believe was due to the HOME RACE CURSE)

- Grosjean retired at lap 32 and didn’t crash but just parked it because of mechanical failure and looks like the wheel came off, just like last year.

- Here's a thought. Can we PLEASEstop showing Ocon in the Mercedes garage next to Toto? Ugh this "Poor Ocon without a seat this year" media campaign is brutal to watch and my eyes are getting tired from rolling

- I love when Jos Verstappen is there watching his son race

- Pierre is up to 6th in Lap 35 with no pit stop though

- Martin Brundle saying Daniil Kvyat did have a habit of “hitting anything that moved”

- Kvyat went down the inside way too fast and then went off. Ugh, amateur hour.

- Gasly’s pit stop means he gets out in front of Kvyat but then Kvyat passed him legit. What the heck? Why let Kvyat through?

- Seb: “Why are we so slow” Ferrari: "We don’t’ know at the minute”

- Hamilton is 24 seconds behind Bottas leading and Max is just behind Ham and going to have 10 laps of fun at the end to get Ham

- How has Bottas only had 3 career race wins and none were last year in 2018? ...

- Near the end of the race, Charles got within a half a second of Vettel after a previous 12 second gap and then backed off (almost as if he got team orders)

- There was a mad scrap for that one point for fastest lap at the end

- Paul DiResta said he didn’t remember the last time that Hamilton was beat fair and square by 22 seconds. By a teammate. “We heard him fragile on the radio”

- Someone at Mercedes radioed to Bottas after the win: “that was payback for last year” about winning this race ......

- Race result: 1- Bottas!, 2 - Ham, 3 - Max!!

Thoughts during Post-Race:

- the cars can’t get into the parc ferme wtf it’s too small here

- Bottas seems genuinely shocked by his win

- Martin Brundle asked Lewis if he had Max's attack covered and Lewis said “yeah it was no problem” .... LOL no

- I think they should have placed the aborigine musical act somewhere more appropriate so it could have the feature it deserved

- Getting to the podium looks so confusing

- Bottas and Maxdy chatting before the podium like friendly friends was something I loved

- Wow, that was way too much confetti on your winners there

Conclusions:

- is the Renault more fragile than the Red Bull which is why Daniel broke his car so early on? I think the Red Bull is made for a bit more off roading than the Renault appears to be.

- Mattia Binotto, I trusted you to give Ferrari a strategy and now they finished 4 and 5.This isn't the worst result ever, but they are lacking in pace so much that they finished almost an entire minute behind Bottas leading. How did this happen after being fastest in winter testing?

- I really could not be more thrilled for Bottas and his win. But I do have to ask my usual conspiratorial questions: was this a) a legitimate win for Bottas, or was this b) Mercedes giving Bottas a win early in the year to use as a bargaining chip later in the year when the people and the media backlash over team orders (see: Russia 2018) which will require Bottas to further babysit Hamilton to another championship win?

- We need to talk about Red Bull. Last year, I was so used to Daniel getting a crappy situation that put him at the back of the pack, only to then move up through the field super quickly. I think that expectation makes Red Bull's Gasly situation look extra bad this year. How is it possible for one Red Bull Driver to grab a 3rd place podium and the other driver, with no apparent damage, to spend most of the race stuck behind Kvyat and to finish out of the points? What was that???