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[pearblossomrain]

personal summary of what might be the most unserious gp i have ever seen aka sao paulo 2024:

(almost needed a whole separate post just for qualis and side note, this sounds a bit like commentary bc i was actually making commentary when watching for my friend)

tldr for qualis; more red flags than an all boys' school, some controversial safety car periods, hamilton out q1, red bulls+sainz out q2, crazy top 5 of norris, russell, tsunoda, ocon and lawson in That Exact Order.

• before the race even STARTED, sainz was starting from the pit lane, albon didn't start the race due to damage from quali, verstappen had a 5 place grid penalty. when you think things are already crazy enough, lance stroll spins out on the formation lap which calls for a second formation lap, and then a third formation lap and aborted start due to lots of confusion (multiple drivers were noted 💀)

(will cut here to save space T-T)

• lights out and away we go....and so does the lead apparently bc russell almost immediately grabbed first from norris?? and he held onto that lead like my grandma holds a grudge; for what seemed like aeons. 😭

• verstappen, hamilton, colapinto and gasly were leaping up the ranks like nobody's business, literally blinked and i missed multiple overtakes from them.

• speaking of verstappen, he goes all the way up from p17 to p6 in like less than 15 laps and there was a super nerve wracking train of tsunoda, ocon, leclerc and verstappen that honestly stressed the hell out of me to watch for all those consecutive laps (i left to get an ice cream and when i came back, even the gaps between had barely changed at all)

• ferrari suddenly decides to pit leclerc incredibly early which i still cannot tell if it was a good idea or not because it started raining heavily and soon everyone except a few of the leading pack went into the pit after a virtual safety car period bc hulkenberg spun out (more on him later trust me), which puts us with a seemingly temporary top 3 of OCON, VERSTAPPEN AND GASLY??? in that order too! 🤡

• first red flag because colapinto collided really heavily into the barriers (man i feel bad for him, this is as close to a home race as it gets for him) and i swear nobody is having a worse day than the williams garage.....my genuine thoughts and prayers to that blue unserious team

• AN ACTUAL BLACK FLAG?!!??? to hulkenberg because apparently when he spun out he had marshals push his car back on track which isn't allowed (but i have to say, unless he made the marshals do it when they didn't want to, it's also a bit on them)....williams racing might have a competitor for most depressed garage after this 😭

• penalties!! so many penalties!! bearman picked up a couple of penalties for collisions and so did piastri which they keep until the end and i'm quite sure there were a couple more but i really could NOT keep up oops. (edit: one more thing! i do feel a little bad for piastri bc he had to sort of give a bit of way for norris at the end when they were stacked tgt only for them to not move up positions at all and with the 10s penalty idk how this will end up being.)

• this red flag period was so unbelievably long (i think all in all it was about 30 min?) that i had time to watch them all go into the pits and get out of their cars, then leave and do some laundry, grab a snack and a drink. 😭 and when i returned, 16 drivers had just requested a restart which in turn led the fia to call for a rolling start

• they finally went back to racing, and so many things happened relatively quickly; norris went wide and russell went past norris to p4, bearman got into the barriers but returns to bring up the rear (NOOO MY SON) and sainz crashed rather badly into the barriers and that was ANOTHER safety car period good god! (they said this is his second time in the barriers which, absolutely Foul, but unfortunately not wrong 😭)

• verstappen (who was honestly having a great day so far from p17 to p2) TOOK A PRETTY BIG LEAD which. oh my god we hadn't seen this in like 100 days or something 😭 and norris goes down to p7?? not sure what happened there tbh i was not looking closely oops again.

• there was a crazy back-and-forth battle going in the midfield bc both vcarbs are in front of perez who, in the commentators' words, "are both fighting for his seat" 💀 and hamilton was also chasing perez (and eventually got the last point) so there was just a lot of scrabbling for points i guess?

• also somewhere in there, i didn't keep track because of so many things happening, alonso spun out and ended up at the back of the pack (i also feel bad for him bc he mentioned back pain and bouncing at the end so sorry grandpa) and yet he did not finish dead last? afterwards he was dead set on finishing the race "for the mechanics", in his own words, which i see as an absolute class act in my opinion. hate him or love him, this makes me have huge respect for him.

• ALPINE. alpine oh my god i (and them. and EVERYONE HONESTLY???) can't believe they held onto a double podium all the way to the end wow i think nobody is happier than that garage and team rn like whole house GLADDD 😭 (p.s. my friend, not sure if she'd like to be tagged, said that the french flag and dutch flag at the podium ceremony were "like y-axis and x-axis" which had me losing it)

• honestly the only thing i am rather sad about is tsunoda finishing p8 after starting p3 but if we are being honest, parts of this race were due to circumstances and perhaps a little bit of additional luck but at least he is in the points and goodbye unlucky streak!! plus it's double vcarb points!

[side notes because this is as long as an entire speech; i did the maths and norris would have to be p1 and verstappen p8 in every single grand prix (not counting the sprint) to win by 1 point and if the maths works out that they're both tied in points, verstappen would still win because he has more grand prix wins even if norris wins all remaining 3 gps]

in conclusion, for a race i predicted would finish at 1:30am my time (it started at 11:30pm here) and hopefully i would get more 5 hours of sleep before work, i will be left with just over 3 hours of sleep now and yet i have ZERO REGRETS BECAUSE HOLY FCK THAT WAS A ROLLERCOASTER. absolutely nothing can top this race for me for the entire season and maybe even last season!!

definitely probably missed quite a few things but this is what i can remember off the top of my head or what was most memorable to me and it is 3am here so pls cut me some slack 🙏