#then the final result ended up being p7 BY ONE POINT which is even worse and much worse than he or ferrari or anyone predicted

[leqclerc]

I think that what hurts the most is how much Charles improved and there was no payoff. If anything I'm ready for people to say that this season took shine off him, that he isn't special because Sainz beat him... He's worked out on many of his weaknessses: starts, eating the tires, poor race pace, incidents with other drivers, driving in the wet, you name it. And yet he has nothing to show for it, some will say he's gone backwards, is overrated, no longer number one, and so on. He deserved better and I hope one day it will be on for everyone how much he's grown.

Yes, exactly this! You've nailed it.

It's already started, from what little I've seen across Twitter. And I hate that things like this - his misfortune, his mechanical issues, the poor strategy he sometimes ends up on - gets blown up and magnified, while his successes, his consistency, often gets overlooked and is overshadowed by something else.

But also people I think are incredibly fickle. We've seen it with Pierre, Valtteri this year, and in a longer perspective - Nico Rosberg. The general consensus shifts from "not good enough" to "omg HOW did we not see his talent before, he is sooooooooooo underrated!" I guess Charles is a polarizing figure for some because how dare he be handsome, talented AND extremely sincere and polite. That doesn't track.

So anyone who has an issue with him is of course going to use the final standings as some kind of definitive proof that he's overrated or that - as even the commentators were insinuating earlier in the season - that he somehow caved under immense pressure from Carlos, that it "broke" something inside him, that he's losing himself. Let's not forget that the final stat of the season is 14-8 for Charles in qualifying and 14-8 for Charles in race finishes. In all aspects, he DID outperform Carlos this season. He WAS more consistent than Carlos this season, which put him in the fight for P5 with Lando going into the final race, despite the fact that he had one DNS (in a race where he was on pole and the favourite to win, no less) and one DNF this season and Carlos had 0 DNFs this year. But why bother looking at the facts when you can take the driver's standings at face value, huh? Even if it was decided in ONE RACE where the luck swung in Carlos's favour.

[formula365]

Making the pendulum swing - Turkish GP review

There are a lot of reasons motorsports fans love a race in a wet track. For one, rain is a great leveller, reducing the advantages of superior machinery and enhancing driver ability. Another reason is that it is fun to see some of the greatest drivers in the world have to wrestle with the steering wheel; reduced grip, at least to this level, is not a desirable outcome for every single race, but to have it on occasion makes for some great entertainment. And some spins are always a bit of fun to watch.

But the main reason why racing in the wet is so exciting is the unpredictability. These are special races, in which the logic of faster driver in a faster car will win does not (always) apply. Everybody loves an underdog, and these races are the biggest opportunities for unexpected winners in modern F1. Wet races can also provide plenty of changes in momentum, with the pendulum swinging in favour of one driver or another; if someone looks like being in control by lap 10, they might be out of it by lap 20 and back in it by lap 40.

This is exactly what we had in Istanbul this Sunday. Particularly in the first half, several drivers seemed to have the upper hand but, for one reason or another, they ended up falling down the order or, at the very least, could not compete with the eventual winner. In different periods of the race, Stroll, Perez, Verstappen and Albon all seemed like having the perfect set of circumstances to win the race. But Stroll couldn’t keep his tyres from graining, Verstappen and Albon spun out of contention and Perez decided to roll the dice and take the old tyres to the end, sacrificing pace for track position.

Perez’s strategy almost worked. Yes, he was significantly slower than several drivers behind him, and almost lost a place in the podium on the last lap, but he did manage his tyres superbly, as he usually does, to finish in a fine second place. It was, however, not enough to deal with the one man that continues to rise and astonish with how he makes the pendulum swing towards him.

Lewis Hamilton knew after qualifying that he didn’t need to do much in the race to clinch the world title. Bottas had struggled even more than he had, and was three places behind. Stay out of trouble, avoid crashing early and ensure Bottas finishes behind. The Finn made his job even easier by spinning on the opening lap and falling towards the back, from where he never recovered. A scoreless Bottas meant the title was in the bag. Hamilton didn’t need to push.

But he still went for it. He was stuck behind Vettel for a considerable period of time, which meant the Racing Points were too far down the road. As the pendulum swung between different drivers ahead of him, the champion-elect never really seemed with a shot of winning. But Hamilton bid his time and once he had clear air, he saw there was still an opportunity. And he is not one to waste opportunities. He clearly wanted to win the championship in style, not simply have it fall on his lap. In the past, he hasn’t often had the change to secure the title with a win. He wasn’t going to let that go this time around.

In the end, while all the other drivers who were there, or nearly there, made mistakes and lost their cool, Hamilton disappeared down the road, finishing a whopping 30-seconds-30 ahead of the pack. It was another demonstration, as if we needed more, that he does stand head and shoulders above everyone else on the grid. The young pretenders will have to wait a bit longer to dethrone him, because he shows no sign of losing his ability with age.

I try to not focus too much on the winners of a race, and not to write too often about Hamilton, but he makes it really difficult not to. He is a unique talent in the history of the sport and we should very much enjoy watching him while we can. Although there is plenty of talent in the coming generation, we might not see another driver like him for a long while.

Talking points * On Saturday it seemed impossible that we could see a Hamilton win. The Mercedes were completely out of pace, and it was Racing Point and Red Bull who had the fastest cars. It was an intense qualifying, that finished with a first pole for Lance Stroll. The Canadian gets a lot of stick because of his father’s money, but he does have bags of talent and he showed it on Saturday. The race might not have gone his way (Racing Point reporting there was damage to his front wing which caused the excessive tyre graining) but he should take comfort that, after a tough couple of months, he showed what he is capable of. He should use Saturday as a motivator to finish the season strongly. * Saturday also provided another concerning moment in terms of safety. At the start of Q2, drivers were sent out on track while marshalls were still in a run-off area, with a crane, recovering Latifi’s car. If your heart went racing back to Suzuka 2014, you were not alone. Race direction justified it by saying they had been informed the crane would be gone by the time drivers reached that point of the track, but there is no justification to even take that risk. A delay of 2 minutes would have been fine. After the issue with the marshalls on track at Imola, this is the second race in a row with less-than-optimal decisions from race direction. We should hope it’s not a trend, but Michael Masi appeared defensive afterwards and said he didn’t think anything should have been done differently. More than the decision itself, his reaction after the fact is not a good sign. * Wasn’t it great to see Vettel up on the podium again? He has had a torrid year, but had a quietly good race and was there to take advantage of his teammate’s error on the final chicane. It was probably his last podium in red, to leave a slightly sweeter taste to the end of his years with the Scuderia. * It was also great that he was there congratulating his great rival on another title. The respect Seb and Lewis have for each other is exemplary, both of them clearly aware of the hardships they had to go through to reach the very top. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see them go toe to toe more often in their careers. It should have been the great rivalry of this generation. * Sergio Perez’s form since it was announced he wouldn’t stay at Racing Point: P5, P4, P4, P7, P6, P2. And those P7 and P6 would have been P5 and P3 without strategy stumbles from the team. It’s ridiculous if he’s not on the grid next year. * McLaren continue to do what teams that reach the top do well: maximise their results and score valuable points even when their car is not the fastest. Both their cars started behind both Racing Points and Renaults, and yet, of those four drivers, only Perez finished ahead of them. Sainz had a bullet start and kept a cool head to finish P5, just behind the group fighting for the podium. His teammate had a horrible start and was last off the line, but recovered brilliantly to P8, and had a blistering pace towards the end, setting a fastest lap that was a second faster than the next best one. The car’s development might not have gone the way they hoped, but in every other aspect, this is a team firing on all cylinders. * Bottas had a nightmare race, seemingly incapable of keeping his car on the road. The team revealed he had suffered damage in a first lap contact with Esteban Ocon which could help explain his miserable day. Regardless of the causes, P14 is not a results anyone expects at Mercedes. At least now he is free to race the last 3 GPs without the title in his mind. I wonder if a pressure-less Bottas might put up some more of a fight in the coming weekends. * The two Red Bull drivers missed out on huge opportunities this weekend. After the first round of pit stops, the race was arguably Verstappen’s to lose, and, well, lose it he did. He was too greedy when trying to overtake Perez and destroyed his tyres in a spin, which forced to a second stop that effectively ended his race. If he was miserable after missing out on pole, I can’t imagine how he must have felt after the race. As for Albon, he is very much running out of time to impress the Red Bull hierarchy. After Verstappen spun, he was in great position to at least claim a podium, but like the Dutchman, he couldn’t keep his car on the road, and opened the door to Hamilton. To make matters worse, the driver who is apparently being considered to replace him finished second. Red Bull have said he will have until the end of the year to grab that seat, but one has to wonder how much can he genuinely do in the last 3 races after missing out on so many opportunities before? * What a tremendous qualifying from Alfa Romeo. Their pace disappeared on Sunday, but on Saturday Kimi and Gio were two of the stars, putting their cars in Q3. That this happened on Sauber’s 500th Grand Prix entry was only fitting; they couldn’t score points, but there was something for the team to celebrate about the weekend nonetheless.

* Renault’s topsy-turvy season continues. After 2 podiums in 3 races, they leave Turkey with just one point and their hopes of reaching third in the constructors’ championship dashed. They should do well in the final races of the season, as the power hungry Sakhir and the long straights of Yas Marina will favour their car, but if they want to be in the mix up front, they need to better understand the car and what makes it work (and what doesn’t). They have shown they can put together a competitive car, but they can’t win titles if they don’t show up every weekend.

[formula-one-thoughts]

2020 Italian Grand Prix

Oh my god. I still can’t quite believe what we all witnessed last Sunday. Despite a slightly mixed up qualifying (with a bit of slip stream drama thrown in for good measure) resulting in Verstappen starting from 5th and Sainz and Perez locking out the second row of the grid, Monza was set to have another paint it by numbers podium, with the overwhelming talking point being Ferrari’s disappointing pace. Oh how wrong we were. In addition to the Scuderia’s weekend being even worse than they could ever have imagined, we were gifted one of the most unexpected podiums in the history of the sport (well, not so unexpected if you were the mystery individual who reportedly placed a 20 cent bet on the top three and got back over €33,000!)

Mercedes lost what could have been an easy 1-2 through a combination of factors, first of which was Bottas’s terrible start. Overtaken by Sainz and then Norris (who took advantage of Verstappen’s poor start), he was swiftly eaten up by Perez and Ricciardo. Such was his lack of pace he thought he might have a puncture, and whilst he did pick up a small amount of damage from contact with Norris, it wasn’t enough to explain the pace with which he moved backwards through the field. Whilst Hamilton was able to motor away undisturbed into the distance, the lack of a teammate to protect him and help with pit stop strategy didn't look to be ideal. I couldn’t help but feel it was a small serving of karma following Hamilton’s less than complimentary comments on Albon and Red Bull during the week, where he suggested Alex wasn’t a strong enough number 2 driver to help Max and the team to victory. It wasn’t however a strong weekend for the Thai driver either. After another disappointing quali he made contact with Gasly, went wide across the first chicane and dropped back to 15th, a position he occupied for the majority of the race. His cause was not helped by a 5 sec time penalty for a first lap episode with Grosjean, and the damage his car sustained. His teammate meanwhile found himself stuck in the DRS train behind Bottas in P7.

Whilst their woeful qualifying result of P13 and P17 had already put Ferrari on the back foot, it really started to go downhill on lap 6. Whilst battling to avoid being overtaken by George Russell, Seb’s brakes failed and he careered quite comically straight through the polystyrene barriers at turn one, before retiring the car. The field was spectacularly bunched up in these early stages of the race, with the DRS train extending all the way from Norris in P3 to Latifi in P19. After the action of the opening laps no one could seem to make a move, least of all Bottas. His Mercedes wasn't only one of the slower cars in a straight line on the track, but also fundamentally isn’t built to follow other cars, being accustomed to leading the field.

The cars came in to pit for the undercut from lap 16, one of them importantly being Pierre Gasly. Lap 20 then brought about the turning point of the race, albeit in a less then dramatic fashion. Who would have thought that Kevin Magnussen pulling over on the exit of the Parabolica would have such insane consequences! With the Dane’s retirement came a safety car, and with that I assumed there would be a steady flow of cars into the pits, terrible timing for those who has recently pitted. Only the race leader and Giovinazzi came in though, and it soon became clear why: the pit lane was closed as Magnussen’s car was being recovered into it. Hamilton’s race lead actually played against him, as it meant his team had the least amount of time to warn him of this. With there being just 19 seconds between the safety car deployment and him crossing the pit lane entry he was alerted to the issue 5 seconds too late. Mercedes error was thus understandable to an extent, whilst Alfa Romeo’s, who had a whopping 75 secs to warn Giovinazzi, was not. However, both teams could have avoided the penalties that soon came their way had their drivers noticed the red cross signals indicating the pit lane closure. Again though, it’s somewhat understandable that they didn’t. Being such an unprecedented occurrence, the only driver to register that the signs meant they could not pit was George Russell.

Once the signs were gone though everyone yet to pit but Stroll filed in, McLaren pulling off a flawless double stack. It turned out that pitting before the safety car was a great call, and when racing resumed Gasly and Leclerc were in 3rd and 6th, respectively. The Monegasque quickly swooped past the two Alfas but it was to be a short-lived high for Ferrari, as he lost the back end of the car at high speed and went careening off at the Parabolica. It could have been an extremely nasty accident but instead we were reminded once again of how brilliant the sport’s safety measures are. Due to the extent of the damage to the tyre barriers the race was red flagged, and Giovinazzi and Hamilton were informed of the punishments for their illegal pit stops – a ten second stop/go penalty. Whilst the combination of the first safety car and red flag cost McLaren a possible double podium, the pause in the race massively advantaged Lance Stroll, who was able to make his mandatory pit stop without, well, pitting! This loophole has kicked up a certain amount of chat and criticism across the world of F1 (especially from a certain Lando Norris), and maybe the rules will be altered to say the obligatory tyre change can’t take place under red flag conditions. As the vast majority of red flags are due to heavy rain, the cars are on wet weather tyres when they come in and hence this has never been an issue before; it will be interesting to see whether the FIA address this for future races.

Another anomaly thrown up by the non-wet weather red flag was a second standing start (as opposed to a rolling start as per usual). I liked this, as it was a more neutralised beginning to the second half of the race rather than being the race leader’s to control. With Hamilton taking his penalty at the end of the lap, which would place him in last, the re-start was Stroll’s to lose, and that's kind of what he did! Losing places to Gasly, the two Alfas, and Sainz, he was in 5th within two laps. Max Verstappen’s race came to a dismal end as he pulled into the pits with power unit issue, but he had an uncharacteristically poor race prior to this, failing to make much of an impact on the cars in front of him. As Raikonnen moved backwards through the field, Hamilton was battling up the order, overtaking with much more apparent ease than Bottas (though admittedly most of the cars in his way were of the slower variety). As the countdown to the finish began, it was Gasly, Sainz, Stroll at the top, a potential podium I found near impossible to imagine. Surely Bottas would wiggle his way up to second, Hamilton would appear in first and Verstappen would return from the dead to plonk his car in third? But the trio were secure, the only possibility of a mix-up coming from Sainz, who lap by lap was nibbling into Gasly’s lead.

It was only on the final lap though that he was able to get DRS, and as much as I love wheel to wheel racing, I was terrified of the prospect of the pair taking each other out and Bottas lucking his way onto the podium. But fortunately, it was not to be, and we were blessed with the first podium not to feature a Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari since Hungary 2012. In complete disbelief, I cried as Gasly crossed the line and the Alpha Tauri garage erupted with joy, the most emotional race ending for me since Abu Dhabi 2016. What it meant to both Gasly and the team was palpable. After an unimaginably difficult 18 months, that saw him relegated from Red Bull and lose one of his best friends in the most tragic of circumstances, Gasly emerged as one of the most deserving ever winners of a Grand Prix. For Alpha Tauri, it was their second ever win and first in 12 years, at their home race to boot. As the Red Bull mechanics congratulated their sister team and Leclerc, Grosjean and many more came to congratulate Gasly in Parc Ferme, the waterworks really started on my sofa. Add to that the Williams drivers’ heartfelt messages of thanks and farewell to Frank and Claire Williams and I was a sobbing mess! Gasly sitting alone on the top step of the podium, taking it all in, is an extremely poignant image I'm sure will live on for years in the minds of every F1 fan.

It was a superb weekend for McLaren, securing a 2nd and 4th on pace that gave them a brilliant boost in the constructor’s championship. Whilst it was a disappointing afternoon for Perez, Stroll continued what has been an impressive season, disproving his doubters with a second career podium. It was sad to see the Williams drivers unable to score at the family’s last race, but they do seem to be on the up and hopefully will be in good hands to return to the top of the sport. With retirements due to both mechanical and driver errors, the weekend couldn’t have gone worse for Ferrari at their home race; as Seb said it was a good thing the Tifosi weren’t there to witness it. Nonetheless, they've got two more Italian Grand Prix to try and claw back a bit of their reputation, with their 1000th race at Mugello set to be an unpredictable one that they can hopefully capitalise from. I can’t wait.