GERMAN GRAND PRIX

You know at the end of Mean Girls when Regina George gets hit by the bus? And you feel bad because you don't want anyone to get hit by a bus, but at the same time, somewhere in you, you hoped for justice? Some kind of retribution?

Hamilton is the Regina George of autosport. And last weekend, Regina George got hit by the bus.

At the beginning of the weekend, I was dreading having to look at all the Mercedes advertising all over the Mercedes-sponsored track at Hockenheim, thinking it would be another weekend of their dominance.

And then came a gift from the Lord.

This weekend was utter humiliation for Mercedes at the Mercedes-sponsored track they put their name all over. It was a poetic reminder that this is Seb's house, no matter what anybody says.

This was also, quite possibly, the best race I've ever seen in my life. There wasn't a single boring second. This race is the race every F1 race should want to be.

Free Practice 1

- I love this lady’s “I heart Seb” sign 

- It’s like 90 degrees in this European heat wave 

- Ugh seriously are we going to have to look at Mercedes advertising all weekend

- I would say Bottas car looks really cool this weekend with no reservations if it wasn’t Mercedes

-  I really hope these high temps just melt the Mercedes 

- How dare Mercedes sponsor the German Grand Prix, don’t they know that this is Seb’s house????? 

- Wait why aren’t we coming back to Hockenheim for the foreseeable future?! This is news to me. What is it being replaced with?

- Gasly finally gets a clean lap together with 22 min left 

- They asked Seb why he thought they weren’t coming back to Germany and Seb was like “cash” and then just waited 

- Bottas almost slid and then Hamilton did the same thing at the same corner. They said that Bottas is overheating at both ends so hopefully that happens to Hamilton too 

- Seb’s dad is there again! Norbert Vettel. What a sweetie 

- Lots of talk about what kinds of season changes that are possible 

- Bottas has a bad lockup and goes into the gravel but keeps it out of the wall and then drives it back to the garage while showering the track with gravel

- Meanwhile Daniel had a bad spin

- A bunch of action in the last 2 minutes 

Free Practice 2 

- officially 40% chance of rain for this session 

- It’s 96 degrees Fahrenheit there. Wow 

- Charles pedals are too close to him and he has to go into the garage to get it adjusted 

- Charles has a nasty lap with the car going all over the place

- Ferrari just dropped Charles car off the jack in a practice pit stop. Seriously guys  

- Pierre just hit a wall and the car looks super wonky now and now there’s a red flag 

Free Practice 3

- So after all that all, it’s not even raining today so. 

- Max has sparkles on his helmet, yesss

- 60% chance of rain for this session now

- Risk of rain for quali has gone done now so it’s like down to 45% chance

- Bottas went off again but no damage 

- Everybody is getting their times deleted because all the sudden the FIA is taking track limits seriously which they weren’t yesterday and now everyone is going over one curb way wide cause they didn’t think track limits was in play. But the best part was that Hamilton’s time was deleted 

- Charles is dominating and keeping the top spot for himself this session.

- Max got in second though and if they have a battle for pole between the two of them I don’t know if my heart can take it 

- The president of Renault is there and they’re in the bottom five basically.

- Shocking Seb accidentally sort of hit a bird but basically missed it  

- Jan Magnussen is there 

Qualifying 

- Seb’s car has something burst on it and has to go into the garage in Q1 

- This was an INSANE Q1 and Seb got out of the car and didn’t qualify because of the mechanical problem they couldn’t fix. Apparently was turbo failure and it’s extremely bad news and will have to hope for a safety car or something 

- Ones out in Q1: Seb, Kubica, Russell, Albon and Norris

- Norris got in the way of Albon pretty badly and Norris wasn’t even on a hot lap they reported but then later they reported he was on a hot lap

- Hamilton had a terrible first fast lap and only made 13th which was awesome 

- Everything is totally mixed up in the field today which is great

- Charles and Max finished 1 and 2 in Q1

- Grosjean and Kvyat almost had a serious incident in the pit lane

- LOL lance stroll finally made it into Q2 

- Max reports a power loss on a straight and no one knows how bad it is going to be and he pits on orders without a time on the board with only 7.5 min to go in Q2

- They got Max out on track again with 5 min to go, should be plenty of time 

- Max puts down a time in fourth just in time

- Mercedes tried to tell Bottas to move over for Lewis and Bottas said no because he was on the faster tire so they had to both back off

- Magnussen has a terrible lockup 

- Out from Q2: Gio, Kmags, Daniel, Kvyat and Stroll

- At the start of Q3, there’s an FIA guy in Charles garage and he’s not out yet and people are working on his car and this came out of nowhere when Charles was looking at pole  

- CHARLES IS GETTING OUT OF HIS CAR IN Q3 WITHOUT SETTING A LAP BECAUSE WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SEB ALSO HAPPENED TO CHARLES NOOO so now he will start 10th and Seb starts last Maxy splits the two Mercedes 

Pre-Race

- OH IT'S RAINING 

- Ted is like “YES A WET RACE IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ALL YEAR” 

- Apparently Toto said that if they keep Bottas for next year is going to be decided in the next 2 races and this one is so wet 

- Just announced a safety car start 

Race 

- starting with a bunch of formation laps behind the safety car and it took forever and everyone was like let’s go but now they’re having a standing start like normal after this lap 

- Max had no grip at start and got stuck and a bunch of people passed but he stayed up front 

- Charles made up to 6th at the start

- Seb made up to 14th in first lap

- Bottas got ahead of Max at start 

- Perez spins on lap 3 and now there’s a safety car and everyone is going in changing from wets to intermediates

- Race has been shortened to 64 laps instead of 67 because of the added formation laps

- Pierre down in 19th after going wide

- Seb and Robert almost collided

- Charles and KMags having an insane fight

- Seb is already up to 8th on lap 8 

- Under investigation Charles and Grosjean because Charles was released right in front of Grosjean who had slam on his breaks during the safety car pit 

- Charles had a crazy slide through a slippery place but kept it on the track even though it would have been so easy to spin around 

- Daniel’s engine blew up and sprayed smoke everywhere and he parked it, triggered virtual safety car which allowed for a free pit stop for Charles 

- Carlos Sainz nearly puts it in the wall and goes skating across an ice rink of wet but gets back on track in 15th

- Ferrari gets a team fine for the Charles pit incident but he doesn’t get a penalty for the race CAN WE PLS JUST DO ONE THING CORRECTLY - THIS IS WHERE MY ORIGINAL NOTES END BECAUSE I JUST COULDN'T KEEP UP, here's the rest of my notes from the text messages with my sister

- Of course these Renaults are blowing up after that heat wave they sat through

- Charles is cruising now that he had his tires changed

- Lance Stroll just straight up pushed Kmags off the entire track

- Max got put on Mediums

- MAX DID THE FULL SPIN PERFECTLY AGAIN

- Everyone is shooting off everywhere

- Lando Norris's car just straight up died

- Charles goes in to get softs JUST as the VSC was ending and while Ham was in the pits

- BUT THEN THE WORST TURN OF EVENTS, CHARLES CRASHES OUT AND THE WALL CLAIMED HIS FERRARI AND IT DUG IN THE GRAVEL AND HE CAN'T GET OUT ON TRACK AGAIN AND IT WAS JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO TAKE THE LEAD

- FINALLY A DISASTER FOR MERCEDES, LEWIS BROKE HIS CAR, WENT INTO THE PITS ILLEGALLY AROUND THE BOLLARD WHEN HE WAS CLOSE TO THE ENTRANCE WHERE HE SPUN AND THEN THE TEAM WASN'T READY FOR HIM AND PEOPLE WERE TRIPPING OVER THEMSELVES TRYING TO GET THINGS CHANGED QUICKLY AND IT WAS MAYHEM, ABSOLUTE SHAMBLES, THE STOP TOOK OVER 40 SECONDS, WHAT A GIFT

- Max is leading the race!

- So. Many. Safety. Cars. SO MANY.

- HAHAHA HAMILTON GOT A 5-SECOND TIME PENALTY FOR UNSAFELY CROSSING THE TRACK YESSSSSSSSS

- Now Albon is blocking Lewis, this is poetry, yes Alex yes

- AND HAMILTON GO ANOTHER TIME PENALTY FOR GOING UNNECESSARILY SLOW BEHIND THE SAFETY CAR your antics won't work here!!!

- Max is just cruising out front and he has amazing rain driving

- Hulk crashes out in his home race

- Ferrari is just having a horrendous day with their pit stops

- Max on slicks!!

- NOW LANCE STROLL IS LEADING THE RACE, now we've seen everythingggggggg

- Albon just passed Pierre. This is so bad for Pierre. So bad.

- Lewis is complaining from 12th, incredibleeeee

- Now Hamilton has completely given up since he's in 12th so he won't try any more

- LEWIS WENT OFF AGAIN YESSS

- KMAGS AND GROSJEAN HIT AGAIN just like last race, Gunther is going to be LIVID, this is incredible

- It's absurd that Lance Stroll is still in this race

- Pierre just ran into Albon, are you kidding me

- Seb got Lance and Sainz so now See is in 2nd, I can't believe how close we got to having Lance Stroll on the podium, which would have really been an unbelievable turn of events

- NO BOTTAS CRASHED OUT at the very end, awwww

- MAX WINS, SEB in 2ND, and then Kvyat, who just became a father the day before?! What is happening?!

Post-Race

- Max, Seb and Kvyat talking in the cool down room while Max has a goghurt, this day has truly been full of blessings

- They didn't talk to Lewis, of course, because he was surely too pissed after the race to even talk to anybody, throwing a fit because he didn't win

- this was a rollercoaster