I lasted ten laps. Which is ten more laps of a French Grand Prix than I’ve watched at any point since it returned.

 

I know that France is the historical home of Motor Racing but dear god how are they so incapable of building a racing circuit. Throw this on the pile of circuits that should be destroyed by a hellfire missile ASAP.

Turned out to be a great race in the end

Typical. I’ll admit to a little bit of a rage quit after the two mctraitors overtook Nando

 

I’ll record the replay And watch the rest later. Partly just to hear Hamilton crying on the Radio.

amazing race and the last laps were nerve-wrecking

Certainly one of the more interesting French Grand Prix, it was.

That was an amazing race I have to say. Would never have thought Paul Ricard would offer a strategic thriller like that but I do think it all came down to Max jumping Lewis at the right round of stops. Had Lewis come out in front that would have likely been the race over there and then and would have been another processional race like 2018 & 2019.

 

A lot of criticism at Merc's strategy but the only mistake they made was not pitting Lewis a lap after Bottas to keep Lewis in front of Max. Once Max pitted a second time there was nothing they could do, they had to leave out both cars. Bottas complaining but if he'd done a 2-stopper he'd have been a country mile behind Perez. He did a terrible job of holding up Max as well. Had he done that even for a little longer Max may not have been able to catch Lewis and Red Bull would be being the ones criticised for botching the strategy. As it is, it was nice for Red Bull to pull a reverse Barcelona and it keeps things very interesting. The most significant thing here is Red Bull finally winning on a Mercedes circuit. Everyone knew they were gonna dominate the street circuits but by winning in France fair and square I think this is genuinely the first time they're favourites for the title.

 

Aside, what on earth happened to Ferrari? Even their 2020 car would have done a better job than the shitshow by them ysterday,

yes, Ferrari were terrible, the cars couldn't handle the wheels for more than 5 minutes

 

Bottas again was terrible, making an error the second he saw the front of Max's car, and again with Perez... that was his only job to disturb and slow down Max even a tiny bit but he didn't... I'm 100% for a swap with Russell ASAP :)

yes, Ferrari were terrible, the cars couldn't handle the wheels for more than 5 minutes

 

Bottas again was terrible, making an error the second he saw the front of Max's car, and again with Perez... that was his only job to disturb and slow down Max even a tiny bit but he didn't... I'm 100% for a swap with Russell ASAP :)

I think Bottas drove a decent enough race. He got screwed again by Mercedes pitting him only the once when everyone could see it was becoming a two stop race and he even asked for a change of strategy. Mercedes sacrificed his chance of a podium and arguably (if unlikely) a potential win to protect the golden boy. His second set of tyres were ruined by following Lewis behind Max when he was as fast, if not faster than Hamilton at that point and so by the time Max caught him near the end he had no grip left. He only went wide by actively attempting to keep Max at bay, which isn't an error necessarily, and he actually put up a much harder resistance to Verstappen than Lewis did.

 

I agree Bottas isn't good enough overall but in France his drive wasn't significantly worse than Hamilton's. Lewis managed to go off track all by himself remember. The only thing I could fault Bottas for was for flat spotting his tyre, whuch caused his early pit stop but he was clearly still in it and should have been pitted before Max did the second time. It was an obvious call given how strong the undercut had proven. He would have come out behind Perez but would have had a very high probability of catching and passing him easily to regain third but more importantly it forces Red Bull's hand, they either pit immediately which gives Hamilton the extra lap or two he needs to be able to hold on or they stay out and hope to hold Hamilton off which looked unlikely on those tyres.

Silverstone is to have a full capacity crowd of 140K for the British GP next month. Fantastic to see and I'll be going myself! (Negative test permitting ofc)

That will be a super spreader event.

 

 

 

Hamilton in contract talks and his words to the bbc show how weak a person he is.

 

Hamilton also indicated he would be happy for Valtteri Bottas to stay.

 

The Finn is out of contract this season and team boss Toto Wolff has yet to decide whether to keep Bottas or replace him with Williams driver George Russell, who starred on a one-off appearance substituting for Hamilton at last year's Sakhir Grand Prix.

 

"Valtteri is my team-mate now," Hamilton said, "and both of us have had ups and downs in our careers but he is a fantastic team-mate and I don't necessarily see that it needs to change.

 

"We have worked well for many years. Valtteri has been my best team-mate overall and when I say team-mate it's not just driver performance, it's about team morale and how you work in the team-mate environment."

 

Bottas is the only team mate he’s ever had he could reliably beat. The manchild is scared of having a semi decent driver in the same car as him. Imagine being that weak

Well, that brings a new definition to the phrase unsafe release.

 

No wonder Mercedes are so keen on penalising Red Bull's 2 sec pit stops.

 

 

One might also argue that the McLaren pit crew have now given Bottas more assistance this year than his own team

Edited June 25, 20214 yr by Severin

I am still trying to work out *how* he managed to do that. Some of the McLaren crew had a lucky escape there, they should be playing the lotto.

 

 

Merc sandbagging again. It’s getting quite irritating now tbh.

For those that don't yet know, Turkey is back for this year in its original slot and Sochi will be replaced by the Igora Drive circuit from 2023

The new St Petersburg track is a Tilke track though. So as exciting as it is to be rid of Sochi, one of the absolute worst tracks F1 has ever had the misfortune of racing at, I’m reserving judgement until I actually see this new track

 

Found an onboard. Lots of tarmac run offs where there should be gravel looks mostly uninspiring but the last couple of corners look like they’ll be fun to drive

I just hope the corners get proper names. If someone talks about turn 12 at Spa I have no idea where they mean but if they say Pouhon it couldn't be clearer.

Ocon showing exactly why he was signed until 2024 🤦🏼‍♂️

Excellent Dominant display from Max. Well managed and absolutely destroyed Hamilton

Another feeble display from Ricciardo this weekend in the McLaren.

Another feeble display from Ricciardo this weekend in the McLaren.

To be fair he passed four cars on the first lap but a power issue robbed him of those gain. Without that he'd likely have finished ahead of Sainz as they were on the same strategy.

 

His qualifying sucked a bit though

Lewis Hamilton has signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes until the end of 2023.