GERMAN GRAND PRIX

Also known as the Eifel Grand Prix, Germany turned out to be a very low key weekend for F1. There was no running all of Friday because of dense fog and rain. FP1 was postponed, then eventually cancelled, and FP2 was cancelled entirely. I wasn't sure if they were even going to race at all this weekend because weather forecasts for Saturday and Sunday were predicted to be colder and even rainier than Friday.

Fortunately, the weather people were wrong again and we got full FP3, qualifying, and a race on Sunday.

I do feel bad for how freezing cold all the drivers looked this weekend. It was in the 50s Fahrenheit, but it was a damp, windy cold, with the humidity almost 100% on Friday. Doesn't sound very fun and I respect all the people who toughed it out to try and watch those Friday sessions.

Other than the weather, it was great to see Nurburgring. I'm very unfamiliar with it except for its reputation.

I also loved seeing Daniel and Max back on the podium together.

Here are my notes from this weekend:

FP1

• medical helicopter can’t fly so this practice is delayed for at least a half an hour. It’s from the rain and the fog

• Callum Illot is in for Romain Grosjean at Haas

• Mick Schumacher is in for Gio at Alfa Romeo

• Never gets started because of fog and weather

FP2

• cancelled for rain and fog so no practice at all on Friday

FP3

• Mick Schumacher is sitting on the Alfa Romeo pit wall and everyone is saying that Mick is going there next year

• Lance Stroll is too sick to drive this session but nobody knows what he’s sick with

• Seb spins and has had a terrible start to this session

• Two Mercedes team members tested positive for covid so they had to shuffle some people around

• Grosjean radioing in that it’s a beautiful track

• Lando has a moment with a wheel in the gravel but he keeps it on track

• Nico Hulkenberg has dramatically arrived at the track and there’s wild rumors he’s going to replace Stroll in the car for this weekend

• Latifi spins at the last corner then goes forward in the middle of the track and can’t get out so he’s sitting on a blind corner in the middle of the track but manages to get out

Qualifying

• Hulk is replacing Stroll for rest of the weekend!! Woo!

• Out in Q1: Grosjean, Russell, Latifi, Kimi and Hulkenberg

• Out in Q2: Seb, Gasly, Kvyat, Gio and Kevin

• Bottas on pole! Hamilton in second, Max in third, and CHARLES in fourth!!

• Charles crushed this qualifying

Race

• Bottas retains the lead!

• Alex has a difficult first lap

• Seb moved in his box before the light but was apparently stationary at lights out so it’s okay

• Kimi kicked up some gravel and it hit grosjean’s hand and he’s complaining on the radio that his finger may be broken

• Albon pits early and they wonder if he has a puncture

• 11/60 they pit Charles

• SEB IS SPINNING AROUND but he manages to keep it out of the wall and pits right after and puts the hard compound tire which no one has run all weekend yet so nobody knows anything about it

• Kimi locked up and hit George Russell’s wheel and it tossed him in the air but it didn’t flip him so that’s good but he did get a puncture and there was so much suspension damage that he has to retire

• Virtual safety car to clean up George’s car

• Max gains a second in the virtual safety car pit stop over Hamilton cause hamilton had to be held in the stop so max could pass

• Kvyat and Albon have a scrap where Kvyat runs into Alex and it takes off Kvyat’s front wing and now it’s under investigation

• 18/60 BOTTAS LOSES POWER

• Bottas retires

• Kimi has a 10 second penalty for causing a collision that took George out

• 23/60 Ocon has to retire because of some failure, he has no brakes or gears or something, suspected hydraulic issue

• Alex Albon gets a five second time penalty for hitting Kvyat but Kvyat had been off the road so that’s a ridiculous

• Alex goes in for a pit stop and it’s a surprise retirement and we don’t know why

• 26/60 Lando reports no power but they say it’s a sensor issue and to keep going but it’s not getting better no matter what he tries

• Geez they are dropping out of this thing like flies by mid distance

• They’re still working around Lando’s issue but it’s uncertain if he will be able to continue

• Lando does have to retire with a total loss of power and it’s smoking like Stroll’s car was a couple races ago when it started on fire

• Lando just finds a deck chair and sits on it

• Lando triggers a full safety car so everyone puts

• Hamilton radios for the safety car to speed up and then radios in for it to slow down

• Hamilton wins, Max in second, Daniel in third, so it reunites Max and Daniel on the podium!

• They are making such a huge deal of Hamilton "beating Schumacher's win record" of 91 wins, but its completely different. They even had Mick Schumacher give Lewis a helmet of his dad's. Unbelievable.