MorrisF1

  Albon’s crash in practice was bad news. For his team mate. While the Thai driver is clearly the quicker it’s still very rough on the American that he had to give up his car to Albon because there was no spare chassis. So, no Sargeant in qualifying or the race because Albon crashed out. Only four drivers were eliminated in the first session, these being Hulkenberg, Gasly, Ricciardo (who was fast enough but had a quick time deleted), and Zhou Guanyu. This meant that Ocon was able to escape Q1, which is no small feat given the Alpine is the worst car on the grid. Things were very tight and this continued in Q2. Late on, Tsunoda and Stroll put in good times to make Hamilton the fastest eliminated driver, on a circuit where he’s achieved eight pole positions in the past. Albon’s 12 th  at least somewhat vindicates the Williams decision to put him in their only car, with Bottas, Magnussen, and Ocon completing the eliminated driver list. At this stage it was looking very close bet...

  And so to Oz, which has qualifying and racing on the right days, but at bloody silly times. I’m sure this won’t be reflected in real pace in either qualifying or the race, but first practice had the top six all covered by less than a tenth, which is quite something. Not only that, the top five were from different teams. Norris was fastest, followed by Verstappen, Russell, Leclerc, Tsunoda, and Perez. Next came Stroll, who was 0.103s off the ultimate pace, and was ahead of Sainz, Hamilton, and Piastri. Second practice was quite different, with Leclerc quickest, a chunky third of a second ahead of Verstappen. Sainz was half a tenth off the Dutchman, with Stroll and Alonso following. Piastri, Perez, Norris, and Tsunoda rounded out the top 10.   At the moment, I still reckon we’ll have the same Verstappen script. But there is a chance Leclerc may spoil his party, on Saturday at least. However, his odds of 2.2 do not tempt at all. Perez at 13 each way in the race may be rather m...

  This may shock you, but Verstappen got pole. Q1 was a repetition of last week, with the same quintet departing. Sauber had some misfortune with Bottas encountering traffic and Zhou Guanyu just barely lacking the time to complete a flying lap after his team repaired his car. Sargeant and the two Alpines also exited at this stage. Haas had done fairly well in Q2 and took the unusual step of employing a slipstream team tactic, which might’ve worked, but was thwarted by Hulkenberg’s engine refused to work, which brought out a red flag (after a much delayed yellow) and put him 15 th . New Ferrari chap Bearman did well to put his car in 11 th , given his experience to date was an hour of third practice a few hours earlier. Between him and Hulkenberg are Albon, Magnussen, and Ricciardo, who was comprehensively outqualified by Tsunoda. And so to Q3. New track, same script. Verstappen got pole and never seemed seriously threatened, but it was a bit tighter behind him. Leclerc’s first run ...