CHINESE GRAND PRIX

This whole weekend was set up for major thrills and action. They pulled out all the stops for the 1000th F1 Grand Prix, which they were referring to as "F-One-Thousand" (very nice). But in the end, the race itself was pretty... eh?

Not a whole lot actually happened looking back at the race. The main drama was that there was a question if it would one pit stop or two, so it messed with people's plans. But also there was a lot of drama regarding Ferrari's (lack of) strategy. Again, we saw Ferrari prioritize Seb over Charles, but once they ordered Charles to let Seb go past, Seb kept locking up and didn't actually prove that he should be in front of Charles or that he had the pace. And I love Seb! But this is getting a little silly now.

We need a real plan if Ferrari is actually going to challenge Mercedes this year. And the only thing that is accomplished when you give team orders to let one driver go past another is that it pisses off at least one driver and messes with their head the rest of the race. That's no good. Let's just leave it alone and let them race. Then it works itself out.

Here are my notes from this weekend:

Free Practice 1

- 2 weeks has never felt so long 

- that drama filled 5 driver promo. Only included top 5 and no Pierre....

- On Charles, Crofty said “he’s the real deal isn’t he”

- Esteban Ocon is not welcome here 

- I love that they’re calling it f-1000

Free Practice 2

- Esteban Ocon is still not welcome

- Hamilton spun in front of Martin Brundle

- Bottas got a little spin too

- Seb roasted force India: “They race harder on Friday than they do on Sunday” 

- Charles out of his car for last half hour because they have to fix a leak 

Free Practice 3

- Williams a full 2.5 seconds behind at the end of the practices 

- Maxy up at 5th and LBP at 12 after their fast laps

- working on sebs electrical stuff in the car hose but looks concerning

- Lando and Seb both went off one after another at one turn because of wind change 

- Charles improving to catch Seb up 

- Alex Albon a bad accident going through last turn and slides and slaps the left side of his car and they only have 2 hours before quali but it looks really bad. They first reported it was Kvyat but it was Albon. Toro Rosso are doing great until the crash. Everyone would be shocked if it got fixed for quali

Qualifying

- Albon not qualifying cause his car not rebuilt from fp3

- Some problem meant Gio didn’t ever get out of the garage so he didn’t qualify, so it was gio and Albon didn’t go out, then the 2 willians, and the last spot disqualified was Stroll in Q3 so a pretty safe Q3

- Had to send out Charles again in Q3 and cost him a set of soft tires because they originally sent him out into bad traffic so what the heck Ferrari 

- Daniel scooted out in q2 between Seb and Charles and I’m stressed 

- LBP makes it out to Q3 for the first time this season, he’s in 6th for q2

- Elimated for q2 is Kvyat, Perez, Kimi, Sainz and Norris 

- Hamilton gets top speed in q2 at last minute of course

- It was totally up for grabs til the last second who would get pole 

- Ended up Bottas on pole, which makes me so happy, then Ham, then Seb

- Charles 4th and Maxy 5th

- Max and Gasly next to each other but Gasly was at least six tenths behind Max

- Max was cussing out Seb over the radio for blocking him in the last run 

Pre-race 

- why is Esteban Ocon doing the grid walk seriously, I am so not on board with this ridiculous Pro-Ocon media campaign

- Geez they really pulled out all the stops for this 1000th race. Everybody's there

Race 

- Max spun on warmup lap 

- Kubica also spun on warmup, there is no grip out there 

- After race start, Kvyat hits both Mclarens somehow like right away

- Team orders Charles to let Seb by

- Grosjean and Hulk almost hit when one speeds out of the pit 

- Hulk retires hahahah oh Renault. It was apparently very important for them to have a good race today cause the heads of the company are there so this is perfect

- Mercedes double stacks their second pit stop to cover off from a safety car possibility and I feel like you don't see Mercedes double stacking too often

- Charles stopped at his second pit stop like he saw something in his way 

- They keep saying Max and Charles are going to fight for fourth now, my worst nightmare

- This has been a crazy race for the top 5, not paying attention to anything else

- Kvyat out around lap 44 

- Paddock conversations going on that ask what should be happening to Pierre Gasly and how he needs to find more pace, wow yes welcome to the conversation, we've been here since Australia

- Gasly is 33 seconds behind 5th Place ummmm

- Daniel finishes 7th as best of the rest but Hulk went out so not great for Renault 

- Results: Hamilton 1st, Bottas 2nd then Seb 3rd in the end, Max 4th then Charles

- Gasly got fastest lap at the end at least but when they sent him out on new tires to grab that point for fastest lap, I had serious doubts if he could do it, which shows a real lack of confidence and problem since Gasly is one of the top 6 drivers

- Seb will be on the podium, maybe he will do a dance or song but probably not 

- Seb doing a peace sign at the podium hahah

- Azerbaijan is next