Okay, Stroller P19 and almost last, and Hulk P17, without having driven anything in anger for a year and a half, specially the new cars and new tires, is there a better case? It's sad actually. I'm happy for Hulk, and it proves he is the most undervalued -and unlucky driver in the past 10 years. If he had taken one podium, perhaps his fate would have changed.
Congrats to Lance for controlling his team mate all through the race and making up some spaces by passing people. Well done!
Hulk is currently in the UK at Aston Martin simulating the Jeddah track JUST IN CASE he's needed again.
Quite a weekend for Lance: - Knocks Lewis Hamilton out of Q3 - Races really well wheel to wheel with Hamilton - Gets punted by Albon The kid's not doing too badly and certainly better than his countryman Latifi.
An yellow-belt judo fighter will usually fair better against than a white-belt one... So not much to be proud of.
Had it not been for Albon Stroll would have once again clearly outdriven Hulk. He was several spots ahead of him until the final laps when Albon had a brain fade. I hated how Jenson Button danced around the question of guilt. C'mon, Stroll was clearly ahead and that was his corner. Anyway, water under the bridge. I just loved Stroll duking it out for a while with Hamilton. Best of all was of course the Sky muppets whincing and crying and making a million excuses for their darling driver. Meanwhile up in front Russell had the MB pretty much under control.
Well, lets not be too harsh on him: Max needed a miracle in the final race last year and that came courtesy of Latifi. And when this GP started to get boring, Latifi delivered again. He is good for something.
We'll see what Vettel can do with this year's AM. So far it doesn't look great. Maybe he can get it into the points, just about but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think AM/Vettel got lucky last year (well, unlucky in Hungary pointswise). I think they'll be just getting scraps of points this year. I totally love this season so far. A never-was-totally-hopeless team like Haas is scoring points while McLaren and to some degree MB have been relegated to the back. Who saw that one coming? Certainly not me.
Nice kid (really) but what, 5 years in F2? And best he could do was runner up in his final season and maybe a handful of wins all in? Never was going to be F1 material. Winning F2 titles isn't enough these days. Your seat as a junior driver can easily be occupied by those with deeper pockets than you. I kinda understand it from the F1 teams taking 10s of millions for those seats, but I don't like it. But eventually we'll get to the point that no one serious will bother with F2 any longer as it's getting more and more expensive with an ever smaller shot at an F1 seat. What's the point spending several million a season on an F2 seat if you're more likely to end up in Formula E (got to pay the bills...), or with a bit of luck in indycar/LMP programmes? Frankly speaking indycar offers a far more lucrative path...
All that because F2 (and GP2 before) are seen as part of the stairwell to F1, and captive of its calendar. F2 only operates around F1. It was not always the case in the past, and F2 was independent with different regional championships (Temporada in Argentina, Tasman Series in Australia/New Zealand), the French Trophies (4 races), plus the many independent races in UK, Belgium, Italy, etc ... Drivers could spend as long as they wanted in F2, and some F1 drivers made guest appearances in some races (Clark, Rindt, G Hill, Brabham, etc ...). Other drivers were F2 specialists and never attempted to reach F1. like Alan Rees, Charles Lucas, Brian Hart, etc ... who spent their career in F2. All that to say that now F2 is seen only as a sprinboard for F1, and staying too long is a stain on the reputation. I think F2 should exist outside the F1 umbrella and be a series standing on its own. That would give the occasion to extent its footprint to countries and circuits that cannot afford to host F1.
I think there is little risk for Stroll that Latifi could take away his accolades of being Canada's 3rd most successful F1 driver of all times.
They will always be better than Al Paese. Google him as the Canadian holds the unenviable record of being the only F1 driver in history for being black flagged and pulled from a race for being too slow.
