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!