
Well, that British Grand Prix was kinda fun. Not bad.
There will be sighs of relief from many across the Formula One paddock as the sport heads into the summer break. A respite, then, from a season that has swiftly become an absolute rout for Max Verstappen.
With his win here, the world champion, it seems, is barely even considering the opposition now but rather almost toying with it for amusement.
The Dutchman won from sixth place on the grid. He took the lead from his Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez by lap 17 of 44 and was untouchable from that moment onwards.
His winning margin was 22.3 seconds, an extraordinary advantage given that Pérez is in an identical car. In this Red Bull, this season Verstappen is quite simply in a class of his own.
A measure of the ease with which he controlled the race – and indeed the season as he now leads Pérez by an enormous 125 points – was demonstrated in the final third.
He was so unconcerned as he pounded round the circuit, one of the most challenging in the world, that he felt relaxed enough to indulge in a spot of light banter with the team.
When his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, known as “GP”, asked him to go easy on his tyres for the last stint his reply was tinged with laughter. “I could also push on and we do another stop. A little bit of pit‑stop training,” he said.
A light‑hearted message that would have been felt as a keen, painful wound for every one of his rivals who are slogging around in his wake with no realistic hope of coming close this season. Even Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, had to admit the 25-year-old had earned the right to be pleased with himself.
Out of curiosity which commentators do you listen to? That sounds very Sky Sports which I believe is the commentary ESPN uses.
The F1TV crew usually emphasise the fact that a strategic call like that on Sunday should ordinarily be to Perez's advantage, and they don't say 'well obviously they advantage Max,' but they never pretend to be confused.
Jolyon Palmer was pretty explicit that RedBull is chasing the perfect season so they will make the calls to make that happen.
They're also continually bemused by Ferrari but never surprised. Although it should be surprising that they just make so many basic, repeated, errors. I don't think a race engineer would have survived sending Schumacher into traffic twice in one season when Jean Todt was in charge.
I felt for poor Logan Sargeant. It looked like it took him 2 hours to get to the pits by the way he kept getting picked up by the cameras staring into the distance. I don't think he knew the crash wasn't his fault.
I was kind of missing Martin Brundle and the Sky team after missing live racing for like 9 years, so I watched the race where he made the 'Chinaman' comment. I was like 'oh Martin'
It does tickle the nostalgia bone, but I really like how F1TV can bring in Sam Collins for an on the spot technical analysis and the overall tone is less old fashioned.
They're still very British but are more pragmatic about the sport. Even when you have older racers like David Coulthard he's very clear eyed.
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