Dipsticks.blog

It’s been a while since I did one of these, but the Sao Paulo Grand Prix was one of those races that when you’re asked what happened the only short response you can give is “everything. Everything happened…” We had changing weather, dramatic championship swings, unbridled chaos, awe inspiring drives and breath taking incompetence. So here’s some of the things that happened at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Write Max Verstappen off at your peril

“You may not like him, minister, but you can’t deny: Verstappen’s got style…”

To dismiss what an incredible drive Max Verstappen put in at Interlagos is to dismiss the kind of drive that’s talked about for years afterwards. This is the race that underlines why someone is a multi world champion, think Senna at Donnington in 1993, Schumacher at Catalunya in 1996, Hamilton at Silverstone in 2008. while of course it’s too early to tell just how this race will be remembered, it surely won’t be forgotten quickly.

He started from 17th and by lap 1 he was already up to 10th, by lap 12 he was up to 6th. Not one snatched brake, not one wheel wrong. Max had a conviction about him that didn’t make you deny for a second that he could win and once he got past Ocon he never looked back. Max set 17 fastest laps in that race, 17! And 10 of them would have been good enough to get the point! All in a Red Bull we categorically know is not even the second best car anymore.

Did he get lucky with the red flag? Perhaps but I really don’t think it made a difference to the final result. He now has 1 hand and 3 fingers on what I think is his most impressive championship to date and it’s performances like this that show why he deserves it.

Lando’s championship is (basically) finished

Where Max put in the champions drive of champions drives. McLaren sealed their fate with the drivers crown albeit in the wrong direction. If it could go wrong for McLaren it pretty much did. A combination of Lando losing the lead on the first lap yet again, some strategy blunders, some more unforced errors and a race car that wasn’t able to do anything special made for probably McLaren’s darkest hour this year. The only consolation is Ferrari also had a terrible day in the office so they held onto the constructors lead.

For most of the year it’s felt like McLaren have turned up as the ones with all the gear and no idea how to actually win races consistently. This McLaren is very different from the McLaren back in the 00s and early 10s and it feels like they’re having to relearn from scratch how to be a front running team.

And as a result, as good as their car is, they’re not getting the best out of it because their planning, their race management and strategies simply aren’t up to snuff yet. I think a lot of their problems this year have been down to them being too risk adverse and therefore being very easy to read. If they want to be consistent front runners they need to learn a lot of lessons from this year.

As for Lando, the brutal truth is how he bounces back from this race will be crucial for both the final throws of this year and probably the next. If Lando is a champion elect, he’ll bounce back well, if he doesn’t then he needs to learn how because Piastri will almost certainly not take prisoners next year.

Still, they’re favourites for the constructors at least…

The start confusion

From the minute the formation lap went green and the confusion that followed, i kind of knew were in for a carnage fest of a race. It all started when Lance Stroll decided he wanted the day off and dropped it at turn 4. He then through either possession or brain mechanisms unknown to science decided the best course of action to recover was to plunge straight into the middle of a gravel trap.

What followed next was disarray. The FIA took their sweet time to decide what to do and eventually settled for aborting the start. 9 times out of 10 when this happens they usually do another formation lap and that usually takes enough time for the incident to be cleared and in the confusion Lando and George thought this is what they were meant to do. Because they went half the grid behind also went. But what they were actually supposed to do was stay put as the entire start procedure was being repeated. meaning pitching the tents, tires, mechanics the full works.

Mercedes under the second start were then caught changing the pressures of the tires on the car which gave them even more cause for worry. they ended up getting 5 grand fines which I’m surprised wasn’t more.

I’m also quite surprised Lando only got a 5 grand fine. While I don’t buy the argument about him endangering marshals, when you consider Perez got a 5 second penalty for an out of position start in Mexico and Leclerc got a 10 grand fine for swearing how does this make sense? But then again this incident was unprecedented so they probably couldn’t make something harsher stick.

Alpine turned up out of nowhere!

With the amount of incident and chaos it seemed only natural we got a whacky feel-good podium to go with such a crazy race. This race was so good it could even make a bickering, divorced couple look at each other like this…

Quite often the cars that are a bit flabby and rubbish in the dry suddenly come good in the wet. And it turns out it was the Alpines who got their wet setups bang on and , as mentioned many many times throughout the commentary, scoured a potential 50 million quid jackpot of prize money for their familiar constructors spot of 6th.

Ocon’s drive particularly stood out to me, he seems to have a talent for occasionally getting Moses to part the waters and/or the cars out of his way for him to benefit. He made the right gamble of staying out and even led the race at one point. As for Gasly he just did a fantastic job of keeping it on the island and staying out of everyone else’s incidents.

After the French revolution the team’s endured this year it’s nice that the team have something they can take into the off season. Hopefully the team doesn’t use this as an excuse to have the winter off like they did last year…

British bias here, British bias there, British bias everywhere!

There’s also been a lot of noise on anti social media the last few weekends about the FIA and stewards being British biased and were trying to screw Max and help Lando.

And on the surface they have a point, after all why did they take so long to deploy the virtual safety car in the sprint and it really just so happened to be after the McLarens swapped positions? Why did it take so long to throw a red flag after Stroll crashed and why was it so much faster for the subsequent crashes? How did Lando get away with murder with his cheeky extra track tour?

All good questions but they aren’t unanswerable. For instance, while it took a very long time for the VSC to be deployed in the sprint, this crowd were perfectly content with the very long time it took in the race. And while yes it did take them 40 seconds to throw the red flag for Strolls off, the Red Bulls were knocked out a total of 3 seconds after the incident. The reason it was quicker for the following crashes is because they were both big enough to alert the medical car which is an automatic red anyway. Also Lando was the only one fined for his extra tour. Tsunoda, Lawson and Ocon all followed suit and received nothing. In most cases British Bias is thrown in the air when a penalty hits a non British driver or car.

And besides the crowd that were silent this weekend were crying foul of the stewards being biased towards Max in Austin. And in Mexico we had fans frothing about stewards being biased towards Max and Lando at the same time!

Is it possible it’s just the FIA are as lethargic and inconsistent as ever? How much of the constant throwing the phrase “British Bias” around is to do with the semi pleasing alliteration? Is it possible F1 fans have biases themselves? Is it possible that some F1 fans take this soap opera far more seriously than they should?

Interesting fuel for thought all the same…

Oh yeah, we had a black flag

Nico Hulkenberg scoured F1’s first black flag in 17 years this race. When Hulkenberg went off he got beached over a drainage cover and the marshals pushed him free. Unfortunately Marshalls are not allowed to help you and his fate was sealed shortly after during the red flag. I do quite respect his attitude after of we’ll keep going and see what happens.

The last time we got a black flag was the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix and they went to Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa. For complicated reasons the FIA closed the pitlane under safety cars that year and the two seemingly hoped no one would notice if they bombed it out the pitlane while it was still closed. Unfortunately for them noticed they were…

So that’s a small selection of things that occurred, I didn’t even get chance to talk about qualifying, the rookies Colapinto and Bearman suffering trial by water, apparently fixed rate mortgage RB are changing their name again next year. Genuinely go and watch the race because I’ve barely scratched the surface and this blog is bloody long as it is!

next blog: when i remember this website exists again