BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX

This will easily go down in history as one of the most memorable and insane races of the 2019. Germany still gets first prize for "Most Insane Race", but Brazil definitely comes in second. The craziest part was that it all happened in the last few laps. I don't have much to say here because it's all in the notes.

I couldn't even talk about it for the first few days after the race. There were too many highs and too many lows. Joy and heartbreak, all in one place.

Free Practice 1

- WELL WELL WELL if it isn’t the infamous Brazilian Grand Prix where I will never forget last year Esteban Ocon hit Max Verstappen which cost him the race NEVER FORGET 

- THE TRACK IS LITERALLY A RIVER RIGHT NOW 

- Ok Charles is going to serve a 10 place grid penalty for using additional power unit elements this weekend 

- Albon and Maxy confirmed at Red Bull for next year, and Pierre and Kvyat at Toro Rosso or whatever it’s called next year 

- Basically nothing happened all session because of the wet track and then all the big stars went out in the last three minutes of the session and immediately Max spun and then Alex Albon went directly into the wall and it started raining again and now it’s a red flag for the last two minutes 

Free Practice 2

- Nicholas Latifi is in the commentary box this session and also Damon Hill and Jack Aiken later

- Gasly has a slide but keeps it

- Some traffic drama between Albon and Kmags 

- For some reason they have a weird situation where they can’t get the front wing on to the Red Bull 

- Bot got in Hamilton and Vettel's way during a lap 

- Kvyat spins 

- Gasly’s Honda engine blew and there’s lots of smoke coming out of the air pipes

- Then Kvyat’s car lost power and crashed into the wall in the same place as Albon earlier in the day and it was on fire and red flag with no session restart because there’s only 3 min left

- So yeah both Toro Rosso Honda engines blew in the same session. I guess they weren't kidding that they were right up to the breaking point.

- Kubica crash really big in the wall 

Free Practice 3

- everyone is trading fastest times here but the Ferrari’s are really fast, especially Charles - Sainz nearly turned into Charles and there have been traffic issues 

Qualifying 

- apparently Hulk is finally admitting that he doesn’t have a seat for next year and that he’s going to take time off from the grid 

- Sainz potentially has big problems as has to go back into the garage during Q1 without setting a time 

- Out in Q1: Kvyat, Stroll, Russell, Kubica and Sainz cause he never got a time down 

- Gio spins in Q2 and caused yellow flag at last part of Q2

- Out in Q2: Norris, Gio, Hulk, Ricciardo and Perez 

- Max on pole for the second time!!!! WOOO 

- Seb starts second, then Ham, then Charles, then Bot 

Race 

- Max keeps the lead as Seb pushes Hamilton back but then Hamilton gets past Seb and into 2nd corner but Max is way out front already

- Charles made up 4 places on the first lap from 14th cause of the penalty and now he's in 11th 

- Lando and Daniel scrapping it out like crazy and very aggressive 

- 8/71 Daniel hits Kmags and sends him spinning, ruining Daniels front wing and now it’s a noted incident and now it’s under investigation 

- A five second time penalty for Daniel for causing a collision with Kmags 

- Hamilton pits first so Max pits the lap after

- ON THE PIT RELEASE THEY LET KUBICA OUT OF HIS STOP AND HE GOT OUT IN FRONT OF MAX AND HELD HIM UP AND THAT ALLOWED HAMILTON AHEAD ARE YOU TELLING ME ANOTHER MERCEDES POWERED CAR TRIED TO TAKE OUT MAX IN FAVOR OF HAMILTON TWO YEARS IN A ROW 

- Hamilton swearing on the radio blaming his engineers for not telling him when the battery was low when actually he’s just mad that Max got by him again 

- The Kubica pit lane incident with Max is under investigation but Kubica is last and Max is in first so even if they give kubica a penalty it doesn’t matter because he’s already last and it did the damage to Max it was going to do

- they have Kubica the 5 second penalty but. No good 

- Charles is doing some FANTASTIC driving keeping Bottas from passing him and they keep expecting Bot to pass and Charles keeps pulling amazing moves 

- 52/71 Bottas car has smoke coming out of it and it lost power and he pulls over and parks and he retires. Yellow flag and no safety car because Bottas parked it so well near a place with a gap in the wall

- JUST KIDDING THERE IS A SAFETY CAR even though Bot parked it so well and instead there’s a full safety car 

- With the safety car everyone is pitting so this could mix things up. Max is on the soft tires Hulk under investigation for overtaking at the restart line

- 66/71 At this point all hell broke loose

- I'm writing all of this retrospectively because there was so much happening on track, there was no way I was going to be able to keep up with that. So, basically, what happened after the safety car was:

- Max got ahead of Hamilton right away at the safety car restart

- Charles pulled a great move to get past Seb

- then Seb moved over on Charles and hit him, causing a puncture for Charles and then a puncture for Seb, too. Virtually everyone could not figure out how one little move like that did that much damage, but it was very unlucky and, ultimately, it took both Seb and Charles out of the race. TENSIONS RAN VERY VERY HIGH.

- The Ferrari double retirement caused a second safety car

- Max gets ahead again at the safety car restart and was gone on to victory

- Stroll retires with a front right suspension failure

- it looked like it was going to be al all Red Bull podium with Max, Albon and Gasly, but then Albon left the door open to Hamilton and then Hamilton hit him and it spun Albon around and cost him a podium

- Gasly fought Hamilton all the way up to the line and barely held him off so that Gasly got 2nd and Hamilton got third, but it was Gasly's first podium and he was just yelling into the radio in his car. It was an unearthly happiness.

- so now it's Max in 1st, Gasly in second (his first podium even though he spent the first half of the season at Red Bull) , and Hamilton in third on the podium, but then AFTER the podium, they announced that Hamilton would get a five second time penalty for hitting Albon, so it actually put Sainz in third. So Sainz got cheated out of his podium and Hamilton got to be celebrated for something he didn't deserve. Again.