BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 2021

The first race of the season is finally here! And it was filled with plenty of drama.

Max Verstappen dominated the entire weekend, only to lose the race because of a ridiculous track limits call which gave the win to Hamilton instead. Of course, the stewards only chose to enforce track limits when it was Max passing Hamilton. It doesn't matter that Hamilton's laps were outside of track limits for 29 laps of the race, which is documented on social media.

Truthfully, I still feel like Max won despite the stewards call. He did everything right this weekend.

This was an awesome race to watch, though, with high intensity battles and stress throughout.

Other major highlights: Mazepin has the most embarrassing start to any F1 driver's career I've ever seen, already earning him the nickname "Mazespin" before the weekend was even over. He interrupted qualifying and immediately pulled a safety car in the race without making it through three corners.

This was also the race when Perez's Red Bull died on the formation lap and they had to do a second formation lap, but fortunately, they were able to get his car back going and fought his way back up the field brilliantly all the way to 6th place.

Also, this incredible post by the Reserve Drivers was pretty much the whole weekend summed up: "Max Verstappen Penalized for Track Limits and Not Being Lewis Hamilton".

Here are my notes:

FP1

• NEW TITLE SEQUENCE!!

• Watching the first practice live!

• WOWW so dazzled by all the new!!

• As of the start of this season, Racing point is now Aston Martin and Renault is now Alpine

• One big change from last season is that FP1 is now only an hour. Before this it has always been an hour and a half for FP1 and FP2, but now both are an hour I think

• They have new little icons next to their names on the wide of the screen, much more detailed

• Interesting that Mick Schumacher’s abbreviation isn’t SCH, it’s MSC, which they said is a nod to his Dad’s abbreviation when he was racing

• Have already in the first five minutes been told about Lewis’s knighting hahahahah

• The first person on track is Alonso of course

• The first person to mess up us Ocon of course

• It’s so weird to see Seb in a green car

• Awww Red Bull’s wing is of course no longer Aston Martin because they left and now it says Honda but also Honda is going to leave them we already know and it’s so unfair

• Stroll radios in asking for wind direction and they responded “wind direction is nonexistent”

• They have Ted, Karun, Jensen and Natalie for the first time talking over doing commentary, I wonder where Crofty is?

FP2

• okay now Crofty is back! Talking with Karun and Paul

• All FP2 sessions are also an hour instead of an hour and a half now

• This is the session that they’re saying is going to count because it is much more similar to the temperature for quali and race

• Mercedes lowest mileage at the tests of any team

• First person to spin this year is Mazepin

• Ocon has a huge lockup early in and has to go off

• Okay but WHY is Seb the only one wearing a hat in his replay clip????? This just confirms that there is a Seb hair conspiracy that he is bald and he’s trying to hide it like we saw from the testing picture and it’s just such a confirmed conspiracy

• Oops Kimi lost power and went into the wall and lost his front wing but I guess every year there has to be someone who hits the wall first every year

• The Williams technical director I think is named Francois Xavier (zah-vee-ay) DuMaison and that’s like one of the best names I’ve ever heard

• Bottas radios in very unhappy with the car, at the end of the session calls it undriveable

• Yuki has a problem with his car and misses the end of the session

FP3

• watching on Comcast and yesterday watching on F1 tv and there were no commercials on F1 tv and there are commercials on Comcast. But I had to watch on F1 tv yesterday because FP1 and FP2 wasn’t being shown on Comcast but maybe it’s better to watch on F1 tv so no commercials because otherwise I am missing constant coverage which I know there is

• Bottas goes out and it’s immediately bad on braking and just not getting the brake retardation he is expecting and for some reason this is not optimized yet for him and it’s still undriveable like he called it yesterday

• Charles has really low grip and has a quick spin at the same corner that Kimi hit at yesterday

• Lando waves at Carlos in the Ferrari as he goes by

• Schumacher has a spin and so does Mazepin

• Of course Hamilton’s Mercedes is fully functional and Bottas car is not

• Alpha Tauri apparently broke the curfew to work on cars last night

• The FIA announced they are going to randomly take apart one car after every session to make sure all is up to standards .... I don’t think I believe that

• Bottas keeps having lap times deleted for going over track limits at turn 4

• They mentioned yesterday that Charles is sitting really high in his car to the point where he might be over the top of the halo and they don’t know why because he doesn’t struggle for height. Also said Seb was sitting high in his car too

• These new blue and yellow Williams designs look soooo different

• George Russell has a Murray Walker tribute on his halo

• Yellow flag for Mazepin having a spin and ruining one of Max’s fast laps

• Something came off the front left of Seb’s car and allegedly "hit him in the face"

• Paul Diresta says that Hamilton is having to work less hard to get his car to work and I love that Paul is always saying things that are onto the Mercedes conspiracy

• The two most puzzling teams pace are astin Martin/racing point/force India and Alpine/Renault

• Max just put down an AMAZING lap at the end of the session that took .7 sec out of Hamilton’s best time

Qualifying

• yep talking about the Lewis being knighted again already, geez

• Mazepin spins again! Already so many spins this weekend. Turn 13 this time

• WOAH Crofty repeated that people on social media are calling Mazepin « Mazespin » WOAHHHH

• Okay Yuki Tsunoda put in an INCREDIBLE lap in Q1 and is in 2nd place between Max in 1st and Hamilton in 3rd

• Max accidentally damaged his floor during his fast lap in Q1 and now they’re like oh no he could have ruined his chances at pole but everyone leave him alone, he can do it

• Mazepin spins AGAIN at the end of Q1 and yellow flags the sector

• WOAH MAJOR surprise as end of Q1 and eliminates Ocon, Latifi, Vettel, Schumacher, and Mazepin

• Ocon blames the yellow flags for getting out but Karun looked at the replay and said the yellow flag wasn’t why he was slow

• Weirdly Sainz was in 15th at the end of Q1 and his car may have just stopped working?? Yeah he went over a bump and the car just DIED and he had to roll into the pits

• Yeah it seems that Seb is officially cursed since he caught both of Mazepin’s yellow flags for spins

• In Q2, Daniel and Perez have fast laps deleted for track limits

• WOAHHHHHH Out in Q2, Perez, Gio, Tsunoda, Kimi and Russell

• At the end of Q2, Sainz and Charles at top 2!! Sainz only beat .001 second HUHHH

• Somehow alo is in for Q2

• THIS IS SO WEIRD

• Another commercial again, umm WHAT is with these commercials in quali?? We have NEVER had commercials before

• I still can’t believe Seb got out in Q1 and they interviewed him and he looks disappointed

• They risked keeping the mediums on Perez and it just didn’t work for him but this is so not his fault

• Our Comcast shut off for an amber alert right at the start of Q3 and I know that’s important BUT THEN IT DIDNT GO AWAY for like FIVE WHOLE MINUTES and now I have to wait until quali is over to watch the recording from where we were or it will be spoiled

• Saw their first runs in Q3 and Max comes out on top!! Then Ham, then Gasly and Bottas!

• Ferrari hasnt sent out Charles yet and Alpine hasn’t sent out Alonso yet and there’s only 5 min left

• WOOOO MAX GETS POLE!!!!! Such a huge celebration! He beat Hamilton in 2nd by like .6 of a second too, a huge margin!! Truly showing some amazing pace

• Max’s first back to back pole I think!!

• Hamilton in second, Bottas in third (despite having a car that isn’t great right now)

• Max didn’t wear a mask for his post interview and it was SO nice to see his face!!

• David Coulthard interviewed people after the quali and it was DC’s birthday and Max brought a cake out and then showed him the writing on it and then pied him in the face the hardest I’ve ever seen anyone be pied in the face!

Pre-Race

• cool history of Aston Martin snippet

• Max talking through his lap yesterday with Karun

• Just announced that Seb will have a penalty at race start. He qualified 18th but then the stewards saw that he didn’t slow for Mazepin’s spin on a fast lap and so they gave him a 5 place grid penalty so all that means from 18th is that he’s starting plumb last

• A really funny and cute interview with Daniel on his first day at McLaren and joking around with Ted as he’s taking the car out for the first time

• A verrrrry extensive interview with « sir Lewis » ughh

• Murray Walker tribute which is absolutely beautiful

• They did a disturbing we race as one thing

Race

• On the formation lap, Perez pulls over to the side because his Red Bull is totally dead!! So they have to do a second formation lap while they clear Perez. Perez gets the engine power back and he goes to the end of the pit lane to start. Perez was super calm through the whole thing

• Max keeps the lead in front of Hamilton and Charles chalenges Bottas for 3rd but Charles keeps 4th

• Max immediately notices a throttle issue or something that is bothering him

• It takes Mazepin 3 corners at the back of the pack to fly into the same corner that Grosjean flew into last season in his fiery crash but Mazepin is totally fine and his crash takes him out of the race and causes a first lap safety car

• I think Mazepin’s terrible start to this season all weekend with all the constant spinning is the most embarrassing start to a rookie’s F1 career I’ve ever seen

• After safety car, Charles ans Max have awesome starts again, super racey

• Gasly makes contact with the back of a McLaren and then loses his front wing and it puts him in the back of the pack

• Mick Schumacher has a spin at just like Mazepin BUT Mick is able to get the car back on track but he’s second to last behind Gasly, triggers a virtual safety car which is quick

• Charles gives Bottas a heck of a fight trying to keep 3rd and it’s awesome

• Max reports the diff problem again and is serious telling them to find it

• Sainz and Stroll have a small brush and Sainz loses something from the car but they continue on

• Perez is flying from his nightmare start problems and the extra formation lap and the pit lane start. By 12/56, Perez is already in 11th

• Alonso pits early on lap 11

• 14/56 Hamilton pits from second to try and trigger Max to pit next lap but Red Bull doesn’t have Max come in next lap to extend the stint so Max can build the gap

• 17/56 Max pits and has an okay stop, just a teeny bit long but fine and Max is in 2nd now but they are expecting another stop for everyone

• 22/56 Seb, who is the only one who hasn’t pitted yet, locks up and goes off at turn 1 but gets back into it

• Gasly is still in last at half distance after losing his front wing and getting damage earlier so he hasn’t been able to make up places

• Yuki does a big pass on

• Otmar complaining about the regulation changes when they talk to him on the pit wall and later Ted says they could have asked Otmar what he had for breakfast and he would have complained about the regulation changes

• 31/56 pit Bottas and it’s a SUPER long stop of 10.9 seconds because they couldn’t get the front right off and it just ruins any chance Bottas has of catching Hamilton for second and puts him out in 7th

• 32/56 Christian Horner radios Max who is back in the lead because of Hamilton’s second stop and Christian says that both Mercedes have been using the exit on turn 4 which is supposed to be illegal for track limits so he says feel free to use it too until they tell us not to which I think was a perfect political message to make the stewards reprimand Mercedes for doing something by wrong because he knew that if Red Bull started doing it then the stewards would pay attention

• 33/56 Alonso has lost front brakes and has to retire

• 37/56 George Russell and Kimi have a scary scrap

• 38/56 Mercedes tells Hamilton that he will get a penalty for track limits if he goes over track limits again and hamilton says he thought there were no track limits and that he’s been doing the same thing all race and it’s amazing because Christian Horner totally radioed The message to Max was totally to alert the stewards and it worked beautifully

• Max has to pit again so the end of the race comes down to Max having to chase down Hamilton at the end of the race and he starts to lessen the gap immediately

• Yghhhh there’s another record hamilton is beating for Schumacher somehow again? Number of race laps led or something, five thousand and I don’t know

• 45/56 Ocon and Vettel have a collision spin but it was minimal and they don’t even need a safety car but it was just a clumsy incident. Seb locked up and then accused Ocon of changing line and then Martin said that when he saw the replay it was 100 percent Seb’s fault. Weird incident

• Crofty is recapping saying Alonso is out with suspected brake problems and Mazepin is out with "suspected crashing out problems" hahahhaah WOW

• 51/56 HAMILTON LOCKS UP and Max is RIGHT on his tail for the lead!!

• 53/66 MAX GETS THE LEAD but went off the track on turn 4 to do it and then Red Bull tells him to give it back because stewards would say it is not legit so MAX HAS TO GIVE IT BACK

• Vettel gets a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision with Ocon

• COME ON MAX, SOOOO INTENSE IF MAX CAN GET LEAD FOR ALL THE LAST 15 LAPS and it’s so unfair that Hamilton gets to go off on turn 4 all race until Max started doing it and then Max gets by him on that turn and Max is gonna get punished by having to give it back

• Bottas in pit to go for fastest lap

• Max has a critical slide after having to give the position back and it doesn’t give him DRS out of the pit straight and that puts him a tiny bit behind

• SUPER TENSE FIGHTING BETWEEN MAX AND HAMILTON the whole end of the race WOWWWWWW

• In the end, Hamilton JUST gets over the line first and wins and then Max in second and Bot in third. Norris in fourth! Perez in 6th after starting last which was an amazing drive. Bot got fastest lap. Charles in 6th!! Awesome drive for Charles too!