Free Practice 1 this morning was rainy. LeClerc and Sainz were quickest, with Verstappen in third. Haas was fourth and fifth -- Magnussen then Schumacher. Mercedes seems to still be struggling, as does McLaren.
Alex Albon's right rear brake caught fire and exploded, which put him out for the session. The other four knocked out -- Ocon in the Alpine, Latifi in the other Williams, and both Alpha Tauri Gasly and Tsunoda.
Hamilton finished 15th... barely missed getting knocked out.
All teams get out quick, to set a time on a fairly dry track, because rain is on the way.
Sainz sets a quick time, but then has an off and into a barrier. This brings out a Red Flag for the session. During the stopped session, the rain starts to come down.
After the session resumes (with over ten minutes left), only a few drivers come out. With the rain, there is no way they can improve the dry times. So there is no point risking damage to the cars.
Q2 finishes - Verstappen, Sainz, Norris, Perez then LeClerc
Knocked out - Russell, Schumacher, Hamilton, Zhou and Stroll
The rain had stopped when Q3 started. So the track was wet, but drying.
Kevin Magnussen had a spin, but got it going again out of the gravel trap. This brought out a quick Red Flag.
With three minutes left in the session, Bottas pulled off with some sort of mechanical issue. This brought out ANOTHER Red Flag.
When the session restarted, the rain had started again. It would be difficult to improve on the earlier times, but they need to try. Norris goes off with only two minutes left in the session. Another Red Flag, and the end of the session.
So this is how the grid lines up tomorrow for the Sprint Session:
I had been wondering why especially Ferrari had so much rear end bounce. Apparently this is the first year in 30 of ground effects being on the cars, and the teams have not figured out the aero yet. For all the money these teams dump into aero, one would think it would have been resolved before the season started.
Watching the cars bounce like that is insane. As a Ferrari fan I feel like if the engineers were to address the ground effect/ porpoising issues, they’d be a permanent fixture on the podium
Today's race was exciting for the most part. Ferrari was just [emoji216] snake bit. Riccardo bumping Sainz was not much but it could have been more scrutinized in my opinion. LeClerc changing tires to get a fastest lap point was misplaced bravado at best. He had one helluva race [emoji469] and the home crowd was loving it. I was happy to see Lando on the podium!!!![emoji817] Gonna be a looooong two weeks for Mercedes before Miami. The car was bouncing around and had a lack of power. Russell did a masterful job to hold on to 4th, as Bottas was on his butt!!!! Hamilton started 14th, ended 13th but never got closer than 11th!!![emoji33] Miami will be a very telling GP. It's a long season but improvements must be made before Miami.
Per points......all the usual suspects are right in the hunt. Mercedes get right sided they can easily be in the Top 2 or 3 before the break. Like I mentioned lots of season left!!![emoji106]
Today's race was exciting for the most part. Ferrari was just [emoji216] snake bit. Riccardo bumping Sainz was not much but it could have been more scrutinized in my opinion. LeClerc changing tires to get a fastest lap point was misplaced bravado at best. He had one helluva race [emoji469] and the home crowd was loving it. I was happy to see Lando on the podium!!!![emoji817] Gonna be a looooong two weeks for Mercedes before Miami. The car was bouncing around and had a lack of power. Russell did a masterful job to hold on to 4th, as Bottas was on his butt!!!! Hamilton started 14th, ended 13th but never got closer than 11th!!![emoji33] Miami will be a very telling GP. It's a long season but improvements must be made before Miami.
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Here's some audio of Daniel Ricciardo being told the finishing line-up / Lando getting 3rd...
Hearing your teammate placed 3rd when you are struggling to click with your car must sting a smidge.
It's not graphic or anything, you can just visualize the "what did I just hear" double take when he asked to get it repeated.
He seemed cool with the news to me actually. Lando is one of my guys but his race outside of getting off the start was rather pedestrian. Ferrari oops moment definitely was mana from heaven for him.........which was [emoji108].
He seemed cool with the news to me actually. Lando is one of my guys but his race outside of getting off the start was rather pedestrian. Ferrari oops moment definitely was mana from heaven for him.........which was [emoji108].
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