Russell may well have lost the race but people aren’t blind to that sort of performance. Character counts for a lot and he was calmness throughout and even knuckled down for a sprint through the places at the end.
Everything good about his race today was down to his talent and everything bad was due to ill-fortune or Merc ineptness.
I don’t think he could have done much more to raise his profile, nor could Perez. A shame he’ll be without a drive next year.
Hot damn, both Racing Points on the podium!! I love it! North America wins the day!
Russell will have plenty of time to shine in the future…he has a great career ahead of him.
RB still hasn’t decided it’s seats yet…
I don’t see that happening for Russell but Perez would be a great catch for them. Not convinced by Albon (and he has had plenty of opportunities)
The only descriptor I can come up with is “Farce”
Bump?
I became interested prior to the 2020 season after watching the Netflix series’ first two seasons. Planned on watching the season but after it got scrapped initially, i just followed the season on social media. Finished up season 3 of “Drive to Survive” last night, figured I’d try to follow along this year.
Bahrain is tomorrow and will be the first race I’ll watch live.
If there’s a newer F1 thread and I missed it, sorry 
This is the only one I found.
Could be a classic season if Verstappen and Hamilton are on the same piece of track a lot.
That was pretty special. Exactly what the sport needs with great drivers able to race on track.
More of that for the rest of the season please. Considering it was thought that the Merc was some way behind it looks like that isn’t going to prevent some great on-track action.
You wouldn’t bet against Hamilton ending up this season with 100 poles and 100 wins.
Crushed for Max there. Bit annoying Lewis was able to violate track limits for 38 laps and then where RBR started doing it at that time then it wasn’t ok (while Lewis gained all that time for doing it so long). I get it at the end where Max gained a position, but if Lewis wasn’t able to do it for 40 laps maybe Max catches him a bit earlier.
Also some great racing in the middle of the pack. Checo already looking like he’s going to pay off for RBR. And McLaren had a great day.
I love Bahrain’s track. Lots of wide track for overtaking.
Great race today! But I can’t look at the Ferraris. The sickly green “MW” clashes so hard with the red that it makes me ill. The Aston Martin green looks fantastic though.
Well I didn’t sleep well, so woke up late and was only able to catch the race starting at lap 31. Turns out it looks like that was a pretty good spot to pick it up, though. I don’t feel that I’m qualified to speak knowledgeably about the sport, but watching Verstappen catch up at the end was cool. Seriously too bad for him going off the track.
Tuning in late, I didn’t see what happened with Mazepin…he was out on like Turn 3 in lap 1? I watched most of qualifying on replay last night an it seemed that he had troubles spinning out all the time. That got me thinking (and the question will show my ignorance of the sport so far), but let’s say a team…oh, we’ll just use Haas for example…can no longer manage to field drivers for whatever reason. Who takes the spot that they leave open? Are there teams waiting in lower classes to make the jump to F1, or is it a case where the Haas team will be bought out by another sponsor and be renamed?
Well, getting drivers are easy. There’s plenty of qualified youngsters coming up in F2 that would chew off their own arm for a shot for cheap. The tough part is the expense of everything else. If gene Haas wants out, what usually happens is they’ll try and sell the team. Kind of like what happened with force India when it became racing point (and now Aston martin). But sometimes teams just fold and it leaves a hole in the grid.
Funny you should use Haas as an example, because both of the team’s current drivers – Michael Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin – were racing in F2 last year. Schumacher is 2020 F2 champion while Mazepin came in fifth. As @snfaulkner said, any number of drivers from F2 would jump at the chance to race in F1.
For as much yakking as Brundle and Crofty do about the result being such a shocker, I say, “Bullshit”. I knew Hamilton was gonna win. Not much of a big gamble there. The real question was if Max could beat Bottas and actually get racy with Lewis. An okay race and hope the season is better than the last few, but all the talk about Mercedes being behind the curve is simply hype and BS.
Any number would pays butt-loads of money and when a team needs money, sometimes you get drivers with a bigger bank account than a skill-set.
It does look like it’s going to be a long year for Haas. I read somewhere that they’re putting most of their development effort into next year’s car, which could bode well.
During the race, someone mentioned that the regulation changes for this year had hurt the slower teams and had no effect on the faster ones. I don’t know if that’s true. I didn’t follow F1 during the off season; what change was he talking about?
Aston Martin has complained about this. But AM was one of the ‘faster’ teams last year - they finished 4th in the Constructors.
He said the changes hurt teams that use low rake and didn’t affect teams that use high rake. I guess the AM is a low-rake car
Well, last year they were, yes, since the copied the Mercedes from the year before that.
Right, I got ya…I phrased that poorly, I meant to ask what would happen if a team completely folded and was unable to continue the following season. It seems the likelihood is that they’d be bought out and continue, possibly with a different name.
It’s not like any rich guy can just pay their money to drive fast. They still need a super license, which aren’t given out lightly by the FIA.