Well the race in Spain yesterday was set up to be just a pretty typical weekend and race UNTIL the last 6 laps came around.

The McLarens of Piastri (on Pole) and Norris (in 2nd) locked out the front row with Max Verstappen (Red Bull in 3rd) and George Russell (Mercedes in 4th).

Interesting start to the race with Verstappen getting around Norris for second.  He held that spot for a good while, but on lap 13 Norris passed Verstappen with DRS to take back 2nd place, but Verstappen then went early into the pits, as the World Champion reached in his bag of tricks and decided to go on a bold 3-stop strategy to make the McLarens really think on their feet.  But while Verstappen was charging late and making up ground, Kimi Antonelli the great rookie from Mercedes experienced engine problems and retired for the first time from an F1 Race and brought out the yellow flag.  This created a FLURY of activity in the pits with all the leaders coming in on the yellow flag.  Verstappen did too, BUT due to his earlier aggressive 3-stop strategy he didn't have any new Soft or Medium tyres left to choose from, so his team had to put the hard tyres on.  This left him Extremely vulnerable to cars in his mirrors (LeClerc - Ferrari and Russell - Mercedes) ready to charge from behind.  And they did so on the restart!  The article below goes into this in more depth.

MONDAY MORNING DEBRIEF: Verstappen made contact with Russell – but why were they racing each other in the first place? | Formula 1®

But I blame at least "some" of the DRAMA on the FIA stewards and also on Verstappen's Red Bull team.  The guy is on track racing and then his team tells him to give a place up to Russell (after LeClerc had already passed him).  A place Verstappen didn't believe he should have had to give up.  LATER on, the FIA stewards concurred with Verstappen, but this turmoil in the moment caused an opportunity for Russell to move around Verstappen but Verstappen ultimately then ran into Russell.  LOT OF DRAMA!

Verstappen was given a 10 second penalty for causing a collision and another mark against his F1 Driver's License.  One more bad mark and he will have to serve a "miss a race" penalty.  SO, Verstappen wasn't too happy, but it was an interesting race.

Oscar Piastri is a pretty quiet unassuming race car driver, who is super talented and now leads the World Championship race by 10 points over his teammate Norris and nearly 50 points up on Verstappen now.  While I think Norris probably has a slightly higher ceiling than Piastri, Piastri is so much more consistent that he will be a tough guy to beat.  And you might as well go ahead and give McLaren the Team Constructor Trophy now as no one is in the neighborhood of them at the moment.

And while Max Verstappen remains the best driver on the grid, he is being grinded down; somewhat on his own accord, but some due to not having a teammate driving at the sharp end of the grid to support him and some to a team that isn't as firm in foundation at this time as they once were.

Ferrari is hanging in there.  Leclerc now has back-to-back podium 3rd place finishes.  Hamilton came in 6th and probably could have held onto 5th in many other scenarios.   George Russell with Mercedes (and really Antonelli too - just bad luck in Spain) is also in the next tier of the fight behind the lead McLaren teams cars.  

Nico Hulkenburg pulled a rabbit out of the hat with Kick Sauber's best result in a very long time finishing a season high 5th.  Tremendous run for them and really impressive from Hulkenburg.  Isack Hadjar the rookie from Racing Bulls is also having a fantastic year for the Red Bull little brother team and finished in 7th.  Verstappen's 10 second penalty had him finally landing way down in 10th place just ahead of his former teammate Liam Lawson now with the Racing Bulls team.

The next race is in Montreal, Canada in 2 weeks.  Lot of time for the Spanish Drama to stew!!!

 

From the FIA - The global governing body for motor sport and the federation for mobility organizations worldwide

Penalty Points Update after the #SpanishGP

Of Max Verstappen's 11 points, 2 will expire on 30 June 2025. A total of 12 points over a one year period results in an automatic race ban.

NASCAR & Roger Penske on Red Alert as F1 Threatens America’s Biggest Motorsport Weekend

 

The article link above provides some ground shaking potentials for the 2026 season for all 3 major World Racing Leagues (F1, IndyCar and NASCAR).  The gist of the issue centers around the likelihood of "Moving" the Monaco Grand Prix to early June and moving the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal up into the Memorial Day weekend.  WOW!

The 3 leagues have "played nice" for a long time with Monaco starting (at roughly 9 am in the States) off the relay race with the Indy 500 starting about 1 pm and then the Coca-Cola 600 getting going around say 6 pm to finish out the night.

Well, this throws a wrench into all that.  POTENTIALLY!  But I could see it happening.

Why is this such a big deal?  Well, there would likely be NO WAY - fans, drivers, media, etc. would be able to watch (and/or participate/sponsor) all 3 major events live.  SO, you would have to choose.  And that split would be just that; a split of allegiances to which group you really want to watch.

The article goes into both IndyCar and NASCAR are not sitting still, as they both have plans for new strategy going to take place in 2026.  It also says F1 is looking at a 4th US race!  Wow!

But the fact remains, change is coming.  And there will be a winner and there will be a (or maybe two or more) loser(s).  2026 will likely be the most influential year in motor sports for decades, as the new face of all motorsports is carved out.

I just don't understand "moving Monaco".  If you are keeping it, why not just keep it on Memorial Day weekend?  But they don't ask me, so we will see.  But this is a big potential development on the horizon! 

On 6/4/2025 at 8:51 AM, Purple88 said:

But the fact remains, change is coming.  And there will be a winner and there will be a (or maybe two or more) loser(s).  2026 will likely be the most influential year in motor sports for decades, as the new face of all motorsports is carved out.

Right on 2026!

Results from the Canadian Grand Prix.  

On 6/18/2025 at 10:46 AM, theguru said:

Yuki Tsunoda's tailor is fired!!!!!

Just now, Purple88 said:

Yuki Tsunoda's tailor is fired!!!!!

IKR, is that the style in Japan?

7 minutes ago, theguru said:

IKR, is that the style in Japan?

I guess if Komono pants are the rage, then yeah roll with it.  They look like on the bargain rack at Woolworths back in the 60s!    

Forgot to post for the Canadian Grand Prix!  It was a good race and salty in spots at the end.

But give Mercedes credit as they are really working hard back at their factory sending upgrades to their drivers and Russell and Antonelli are both making it count.

Heading into Canada, Mercedes surely were at BEST the 3rd best team (And that is Generous!) and perhaps tied for third with Ferrari.

So, when George Russell overcame a challenging couple practice sessions and blew the doors off the field to take pole position at another very entertaining qualifying session.  Yes, the talented British driver has really come into his own this season leading a super talented Mercedes lineup with the best rookie on the grid as his teammate (Antonelli).  It really is a good setup for Merc right now with the clearly more seasoned Russell leading the rookie who will be a threat in F1 for some time to come.

So, Russell led the field with Verstappen in second and the points leader Piastri (McLaren) in 3rd, Antonelli in 4th (GREAT showing) and Hamilton the lead Ferrari in 5th.  Lando Norris missed the mark and qualified a disappointing 7th.

The race was pretty entertaining with Russell able to hold off Verstappen and the lineup of qualifying above was the way they came home as well, but about 4 laps from the end, Lando Norris was on his teammates gear box and tried to make a move to the outside down the main straight and before he got alongside his teammate, he hit Piastri in the back; ripped his front wing off and veered him into the wall ending his day in yet another move that is less than you'd expect from Norris, who is SUPER talented, BUT he simply miscalculates at times.  And at 200 mph, there is little recovery from that.

So Mercedes get a HUGE shot in the arm; McLaren's head man Stella calling the McLaren conflict "unacceptable" and clearly the worst weekend for McLaren this season; RedBull fired 2 formal complaints to the FIA Stewards against Mercedes (it's much better laid out here if you wish to read it  F1 Red Bull team protest against George Russell, Mercedes thrown out after Canadian Grand Prix | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site for latest headlines)  but was ultimately thrown out - SO much to do over nothing in my book AND should NOT have been sent to the stewards.  Man Up and get better Red Bull!  And Ferrari just had a very poor weekend.  They started out with LeClerc in the wall in practice; they had terrible tyre strategy in qualifing and Hamilton ran over some type animal in the race and damaged his floor and he still brought it home in 6th.  BUT not up to their teams' lofty standards and there are rumors of people on the chopping block for the red pony team.  It's hot in that Italian spotlight!!!

On to the part of the F1 season I love the most, which is the old school European section with the Red Bull Ring (Austrian GP), Silverstone (British GP) and my favorite SPA (Belgian GP).  It's a great time really with all major sports ending (with the exception of baseball, which I'm sad to say I find pretty boring and uninteresting).  But it is a great down time as we all look forward to the start of football again!!!

The Austrian Grand Prix is a really good track and always puts on a good show.  And the 2025 version was a good race as well.

It started on Saturday with the McLaren's the lead team by a considerable margin IMO.  BUT give Ferrari credit.  They appeared to be the distant 4th team after a bad outing in Montreal the race before.  And Charles LeClerc posted a great qualifying lap and split the McLarens with Norris on Pole and Piastri pushed down to 3rd.  Hamilton with a nice effort for 4th and Russell in 5th for Mercedes.  And the World Champion was down in 7th.

At the start of the race was a lot of action.  LeClerc got a great jump off the line, so Norris was forced to move over and block him, which he did.  This allowed Piastri to zoom around the outside and take 2nd place.  Going into Turn 3 the leaders converged and as Verstappen was going through Antonelli, the rookie Mercedes driver, made his first real Rookie move of the season, by coming in "hot" to the curve, locking up his breaks and colliding with Verstappens rear right wheel taking both out of the race!  This was clearly Antonelli's fault and the only positive for the World Champion is that now 2 penalty points come off his License, so the likelihood he is suspended a race presently seems unlikely.  

Over the course of the race, Piastri would keep Norris honest and even pass his teammate once but give Norris credit as he used momentum and DRS to retake the lead and never gave it up.

Bringing home another McLaren 1-2 finish.  Ferrari has to be ecstatic with this finish as they come home 3rd and 4th.  Russell came home 5th.

A couple other notes of interest:

1.  Fred Vasser the Ferrari head man; But is he now?  He was not at the race today and was "away on personal matters".  A lot of pressure on the Red team, BUT they rose to the occasion this week.  Well done to them!  But I see more turmoil ahead and while I think they stay near the front; I'm not sure who you will see on the active team.

2.  Kick Sauber, a team typically thought of as the very last team on the grid, has really turned things around and made some solid race weekends here of late.  Nico Hulkenburg has always gotten more out of the car than it really should have IMO (VERY underrated driver) and today his teammate Gabriel Bortoletto turned in his best weekend; got to Q3 in Qualifying and finished a really respectable 8 and 9 with Bortoletto's first points of the season!  Well Done!

3.  Williams was a dumper fire today.  Carlos Sainz never saw the green flag as his brakes caught fire and retired before the race.  His teammate Alex Albon was doing better but after his first pit stop had brake problems too and was soon retired.  Really tough for them.

4.  Poor Yuki Tsunoda.  The second Red Bull has just been on a slippery slope from the moment he was called up mid-season to the lead Red Bull Team and I feel tensions are incredibly high now.  Today he ran into Lance Stroll, who had a really good car.  He then ran into Franco Colipinto, who was just holding his line.  I think the pressure is getting to Tsunoda and this bad storm isn't going away for Red Bull.

On to a GREAT Track at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone!!!!  Going to be fun!!!