FRENCH GRAND PRIX

If you watch enough TV, you slowly learn how a TV show will spread out the really exciting episodes. For every two slow episodes, there's one that's insanely exciting.

I guess that's how things are with F1, too. With all the drama of the Canadian Grand Prix, the slowness of the French Grand Prix is only to be expected. Still, I would not have wanted to pay for a paddock club pass to the French GP at Circuit Paul Ricard this year and have that race be what I paid for. It just wasn't entertaining.

Last year, we took a siblings trip to Paul Ricard during the F1 French GP, we were really fortunate to have a really exciting race that weekend. Part of that was probably because 2018 was the golden year of F1 with Daniel and Max both still at Red Bull, but also the races last year seem to be way more consistently exciting than the ones this year have been so far.

I enjoyed seeing Circuit Paul Ricard again, with all of it's weaving red and blue lines that make your TV set go all jumbled, but I do wish this weekend could have been a fraction as exciting as Canada was.

At least we're in for the summer double header coming up next weekend. Hopefully, this weekend's lack of excitement will mean it's saving up for next weekend's Austrian Grand Prix.

FP1 

- we were there last year!! 

- Ferrari is asking the Canadian stewards to review the penalty again 

- Since when has Sirotkin been Renault reserve driver?? 

- Charles reporting his front right tire is already striped after 5 minutes out, can somebody please just GET HIM A TIRE PLEASE

- Seb is running the new front wing and Charles is running the old one, why am I not surprised 

- Kvyat is gonna start from the back of the grid this race because he basically has a new car. The list just went on and on 

- Kvyat spins at turn five

- Lewis apparently didn’t show up for press day on Thursday because he was at a fashion show in Paris. A FASHION show.

- Latifi from F2 is running in Russell’s car at Williams 

- The floors of the Renault are rubbing against the track and causing the car to smoke. I’m having McClaren Indy500 Quali flashbacks 

- There is no grip at all and people are spinning everywhere

- Seb also reporting bad tires so at least it’s both Ferrari’s 

- Seb got married!!!! 

- Ok hang on. Danill kvyat is having a baby with Nelson Piquet’s daughter??? Where is all this drama coming from?!?

- Max has a little spin at turn 6 but he’s fine

- Charles apparently went to sit in the commentary box after the Canadian Grand Prix so he could stay out of everybody’s way 

- LBP has a big spin 

FP2 

- The FIA haven’t told us if they are going to respond to the Ferrari appeal for Canada and I have no confidence they will do a single thing about it but it would be such good drama if it did 

- Part of all the spins is that the track was recently resurfaced and also all the pollen sitting on the track. When it’s first resurfaced last year,  super grippy but then it degraded really fast

- Grosjean locked up really bad and ruined a set of hard tires and he only had two sets for this weekend to begin with 

- Hamilton collected a bollard and went off he track, rejoined inappropriately and then threw off Max’s fast lap, which caused Max to go off to take evasive action 

- Everyone’s like "didn’t hamilton just do exactly what he was complaining Vettel did in Canada that resulted in the penalty???" drama 

FP3 

- It’s so hot and it’s causing the tires to melt on the new track surface

- Renault apparently is using Red Bull as a reference. Which makes Daniel’s betrayal even worse 

- Renault is like super under pressure here *rubs hands together in expectation of failure* this’ll be good 

- Paul says there’s rumors that Kubica will be replaced by Latifi next year because people expected more from his return to F1  

- Helmut Marko says the Pirelli tires are favoring Mercedes because they’re made for cars with the most downforce so basically Williams is screwed 

- Daniel has a little off track escapade 

- Charles did a BLISTERING lap just .083 down from the top time by Bottas and everyone was like woah where did that come from 

- Charles top time of 1:31:118! It’s .2 higher than Bottas

- McLaren is really performing well on this track 

- Hamilton stole the top time back by less than 0.0 

- Max having grip issues

- George Russell has something wrong and limped back and he’s been in the garage 5 minutes and they don’t know what’s wrong 

- Somethings happened with Seb’s seatbelt and they can’t take the halo off so the mechanics have to get in there in a weird way and it’s funny 

- Hulk just called Perez "Jésus Perez"

Quali

- Kimi went off but he’s fine 

- Max had a bad lap and was in danger of being out in Q1 and had to go again but now he’s 5th so he should be fine and they did it with plenty of time left 

- Charles giving everyone runs for their money and has been consistently faster than Seb. Charles keeps everyone on their toes 

- There’s some sort of Kimi / Daniel incident, also Grosjean, that happened in Q1 that’s under investigation but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal 

- How the heck is George Russell getting a 15 place grid penalty? Like what did he even do? He only got some new parts, geez 

- Ok now Max is in danger again at the end of Q1, why does this keep happening 

- Out in Q1: Kubica, Williams, Grosjean, Stroll 

- MAX WAS 14th before the end of Q1, that was WAY too close 

- People getting in each other’s way left and right in Q1 here 

- Nice Nico is there!!! Love him

- Hahaha Stroll is out in Q1 and Perez is like ends in 5th or something. .7 behind his teammate 

- For Q2, Red Bull has confidence to put Max on harder slower tire but not LBP.... 

- One of Maxy’s lap times got nulled because of « exceeding track limits » but it didn’t end up mattering because he put another good one down. But still. Ridiculous 

- Seb genuinely saying he wasn’t trying to hold up Charles on the radio when Charles radioed in worried he wouldn’t make it to the line to start his last lap 

- Albon, Kimi, Hulk, Perez and Mag out in Q2

- LBP was way close to getting out in Q2 

- everyone’s like Gasly is way off the pace from his teammate again

- Hahah Grosjean swearing in the pen and they had to bleep it 

- Lance Stroll looks like he has no idea what happens in a car when he talks 

- in Q3, Seb forced to pit because of a missed upshift. He pulled for an upshift and the car didn’t do it 

- at end of Q3, ham on pole, Bottas in 2nd, Charles starting 3rd!!

- Vettel starting 7th? So that’s bizarre, his Quali was miserable. 2 McLarens starting 5 and 6! Max starting 4th, next to Charles

- GET OUT OF CHARLES POST RACE INTERVIEW LEWIS

Race 

- at start, Charles really gave the 2 Mercedes a run for their money 

- Perez went off and is being investigated for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, which I actually think is so stupid. He must be so mad

- Max reporting engine problems and now it’s fixed 

- Hamilton reports engine issues but I think it’s a ruse 

- those Mclarens kept Seb at bay for several laps impressively

- Perez got a 5 sec penalty even though he went the right way around the bollard though they gave him the penalty for gaining a place 

- Ham reports there’s something wrong with his seat 

- Daniels drink is not hooked up

- Norris having hydraulic issues in the McLaren 

- Grosjean just had to retire out of nowhere but it’s likely the Home Race Curse 

- Virtual safety car so someone can retrieve a bollard that rolled on track and it seems Albon hit it originally

- It got exciting at the very end with Daniel passing Norris who had issues and then Charles gave Bottas a really good run but stayed third 

-Seb stole fastest lap at the last minute 

- Daniel’s pass on Norris was so reckless and 2 other cars were involved so it’s under investigation 

- overall this was another one one of those super boring races. Not as bad as China or Spain but still pretty nothing. The only thing that kept it interesting was the we visited that track last year and when it got a bit exciting at the end