Whenever you add poor weather to F1 racing, it creates complete chaos on most occasions and todays British Grand Prix was not exception.  But first for Qualifying on Saturday saw Max Verstappen, the reigning World Champion for Red Bull with rumors flying around all over of his possible move to Mercedes Racing, wait until the very last moment to come out of his garage and still make his final flying lap in Q3 to stun the orange McLaren Cars who both made mistakes in their final laps to see the reigning champ take a much needed pole position!  The McLaren's were next with Piastri in 2nd and Norris in 3rd.  Russell the lead Mercedes was 4th then both Ferrari's and Russell's teammate Antonelli next.  Pierre Gasly ran a great qualifying just getting out of P1 and P2 at the last possible instant.  His best run of the year.

It wasn't raining when the race started but the track wasn't dry either.  Verstappen held the lead at the start, but Piastri was all over him and on Lap 11 the Australian passed the World Champion.  And then the rains came with multiple cars off the track.  I had to feel for rookie Isaac Hadjar who simply ran into the back of Antonelli when he simply couldn't see him.  On a restart about half way through the race Verstappen came roaring around a curve but Piastri was checked up and Verstappen passed the leader under yellow which is a no-no.  But Piastri was given a 10 second penalty for going too slow behind the pace car.  I think that is a harsh penalty in my assessment.  5 seconds perhaps, but 10 was excessive in my opinion.  Then Verstappen spun on that restart and fell back to around 10th, but give him credit for fighting back to 5th.

With the 10 second penalty on Piastri basically handed the race to Norris, who took the checkered flag for the second race in a row and cut his teammates lead to 8 points in the Championship Race.

Piastri took second.  BUT a GREAT story and really the best story IMO was Niko Hulkenburg, the verteran Kick Sauber racer had never in 239 races gotten on the Podium (1st, 2nd or 3rd), which is crazy to me.  The guy is a terrific racer who is typically with a car lacking from the front.  And such was the case today, but Hulkenburg put it all together and achieved a career best 3rd Place!  Simply OUTSTANDING!  

Lewis Hamilton, the Legend, drove a great race today and I thought he was going to take the last Podium spot as he got on Hulkenburg's gear box, but burned up his tires doing it and couldn't pass the German.  He took a very solid 4th.  Verstappen climbed back up to 5th with an epic Pierre Gasly performance to pass Lance Stroll on the last lap and finish 6th in an Alpine sled most would do well to bring home 16th!.  Stroll also drove a great race today and got the best out of his car coming home in 7th.  Alex Albon in 8th. Fernando Alonso in 9th and George Russell recovers to the last points spot in 10th.

Very eventful race.  And the F1 Summer Brake is now upon us with a 3 Week Break.  We are halfway though the season now if you can believe it!  They come back at the end of July with my Favorite Track/Grand Prix - The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa!  Always a top stop on the tour! 

This 88!

BUT a GREAT story and really the best story IMO was Niko Hulkenburg, the verteran Kick Sauber racer had never in 239 races gotten on the Podium (1st, 2nd or 3rd), which is crazy to me.  The guy is a terrific racer who is typically with a car lacking from the front.  And such was the case today, but Hulkenburg put it all together and achieved a career best 3rd Place!  Simply OUTSTANDING!  

I have always been a huge Hulkenburg fan and I would love to see him in a top car.

Great Hulkenburg post @theguru!

BIG NEWS!

Christian Horner, the CEO for Red Bull, has been let go "with immediate effect".  That is a HUGE decision!

Horner was at the helm when Red Bull came on line in 2005.  He directed them from a team that just got points into a team that competed and won Championships including one of the most dominant seasons in F1 History in 2022 when Max Verstappen won an incredible 15 times during the season.

Current (at least of yesterday anyway) Racing Bulls (Red Bull Little Brother Team) CEO Laurent Mekies (great hair! Mekies is on the right and the new Racing Bulls CEO is Alan Permane on the left):

These are really experienced guys, but this is a HUGE shakeup and you have to think it directly stems to Max Verstappen and Red Bulls desire to keep the World Champion with the Milton Keynes based team.

I suppose they had to make this change if they wanted to keep Verstappen as I think Mercedes has gone all in on trying to sign Max.  Going to be interesting!

3 hours ago, Purple88 said:

Great Hulkenburg post @theguru!

BIG NEWS!

Christian Horner, the CEO for Red Bull, has been let go "with immediate effect".  That is a HUGE decision!

Horner was at the helm when Red Bull came on line in 2005.  He directed them from a team that just got points into a team that competed and won Championships including one of the most dominant seasons in F1 History in 2022 when Max Verstappen won an incredible 15 times during the season.

Current (at least of yesterday anyway) Racing Bulls (Red Bull Little Brother Team) CEO Laurent Mekies (great hair! Mekies is on the right and the new Racing Bulls CEO is Alan Permane on the left):

These are really experienced guys, but this is a HUGE shakeup and you have to think it directly stems to Max Verstappen and Red Bulls desire to keep the World Champion with the Milton Keynes based team.

I suppose they had to make this change if they wanted to keep Verstappen as I think Mercedes has gone all in on trying to sign Max.  Going to be interesting!

I am pretty much shocked here.  This is "sort of" like if the Chiefs fired Andy Reed midseason this coming year because the Chiefs were having an off year but at the same time everyone knew the Chiefs had less talent this year. 

21 hours ago, theguru said:

This had to be a real gut punch to a guy like Christian Horner.  It sounds like this came out of left field for him.  If not, I don't think he speaks the way he did above.  

This is also a great speech for a guy just taking the biggest demotion he will likely ever take.  

BUT all things come to an end sooner or later and in the business of F1 seldom do you ride off into the sunset.  Most of the time you are knocked off the horse and shot!  Such is life, but I am a big Christian Horner fan.  He really pushed the envelope in the late 2018's to 2023 anyway to create a powerhouse team.

But in F1 if you don't win or both cars competing at the top of the grid, you won't last long.  This has played out to one of the most recognized people in the business.  Makes the last part of the season more intriguing to me.

The Belgian Grand Prix is my favorite of the entire F1 season!  The track in the Ardennes Mountains of Belgium is the best track in the world IMO.  And that is saying a lot as I truly LOVE the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

F1 also holds a Sprint race in advance of the main qualifying and Grand Prix race, which although they cut out 2 rounds of practice add a second qualifying round and short 14 laps Sprint race around Spa, which is always a treat.

The McLarens remain the top team and showed well this weekend with Piastri claiming pole for the Sprint Race and Norris claimed pole position for the main Grand Prix!

In the Sprint Race though, Max Verstappen (Red Bull) made a great opening lap pass on Piastri to take the lead; one he would not relinquish to win the Sprint.  Piastri in 2nd and Norris in 3rd.

Then the Grand Prix Qualifying saw Lando Norris turn in a great lap to nip his teammate Piastri for pole.  But bigger news for me was Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari lead driver, turned in a great lap as well and beat Max Verstappen for 3rd spot on the grid.  The World Champion was in 4th with Alex Albon (Williams) in 5th and George Russel in 6th.

The weather is unpredictable in the Ardennes Mountains and the Grand Prix was delayed about an hour and a half, so when they got going (under a safety car for safety reasons) Piastri drove brilliantly to pass his teammate on lap one.  Then McLaren decided to go with different strategies as Piastri selected medium tyres on Lap 12, while Norris came in a lap later and selected the Hard tyres.  But with the cool conditions, those hard tyres just didn't have the oouuumppphhh to get Norris close enough to make Piastri misstep on his nursing Medium tyres and the Australian wins the Belgian Grand Prix! 

Interestingly, LeClerc and Verstappen also came in on Lap 12 and Verstappen would put a LOT of pressure on LeClerc, but he couldn't get around him and had to settle for disappointing 4th place.  Very nice work from the Ferrari lead guy.  But what about the other Ferrari with 7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton?  He had mostly a weekend to forget, going out in Q1 in both the Sprint Qualifying and Grand Prix Qualifying sessions.  He started from the pit lane for the Grand Prix and drove very, very well to finish 7th and in the points, BUT he didn't beat a lot of "good" cars IMO.  And he even said it was "unacceptable" to start down that far at Spa.  I also think it is slightly unfair to feel Hamilton should be "dominating" in a brand new car with a new team when he had been at Mercedes for more than a decade, but you don't get an extended honeymoon at Ferrari.  Onward.

A few others that did well this race:

Liam Lawson - finished 8th and had alot of zip in the midfield.

Pierre Galsy - The Alpine cars are likely the worst on the grid and STILL Gasley pulled it home in the points for 10th place.  Well done!

A few others that did not do well in this race:

Isack Hadjar - The young Frenchman is one of the top rookies on the grid, but even though he qualified well his "car issues" relegated him to LAST.  Not why ya race!

Carlos Sainz - The Spaniard called out his team as "not operating at F1 Level" after Sunday's setback where "car reliability issues" caused Sainz to end up way back in 18th.  BUT his teammate finished 6th?!?!?!?!  What to make of that?

The Hungarian Grand Prix is next up this weekend!

Great race at the top of the grid at the "Hungaroring" saw Charles LeClerc, the top Ferrari, steal the pole away from the two McLaren's on Saturday.  Tremendous effort!

Then for the Grand Prix on Sunday saw LeClerc get off the line well and hold off Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and lead the race.  Lando Norris the other McLaren dropped down to 4th in the opening laps but passed George Russell back around the 10th lap and Norris then was still in range of the 2 cars ahead of him.  But Piastri was concerned with LeClerc and because so, he tried to undercut him and pitted on Lap 18, this forced LeClerc to follow suit and pit on Lap 19; this would fall into Lando Norris' hands who inherited the lead and smartly chose to keep running out front in clear air all the way to Lap 31.  And all this time Piastri and LeClerc were battling behind Norris and ultimately taking tyre performance out of their tyres.  Then LeClerc chose to come into the pits on Lap 40, but this time Piastri didn't follow him as he could clearly see now that Norris was the only one he needed to race, but it would turn out too late as Piastri would have to come back into the pits on Lap 45 and he was about 10 seconds behind Norris then; Piastri passed LeClerc on about Lap 50 and left him in the dust, but he had to use up his tyres to get back to Norris who smartly chose to stay out on 14 lap older tyres.  Piastri did close up to Norris and they did battle but with about only 2 laps to go Piastri simply couldn't get past his teammate even with DRS to help him.

I think Piastri had the better car (not by alot, but better) and it was the closest race of the season with Norris winning the race by about a half a second.  Very entertaining!  And the Championship battle is now just 9 points separating the McLarens.

LeClerc was pretty upset as he blew up on the radio mad at the world really and moving under braking - a HUGE NO NO!  But Russell was still able to pass him and get on the Podium for 3rd.  Well done to the Mercedes man!

One name I haven't mentioned.  World Champion Max Verstappen had a weekend to forget.  This track doesn't suit the Red Bull overall anyway, but still he started in 8th spot.  WAY WAY down for Max.  Then lost a spot at the beginning and couldn't pass Bortoleto, the upstart Kick Sauber driver.  He was very frustrated with the strategy implored, initially pitting for hard tyres he didn't like and releasing him into tough traffic out of the first stops.  I would be surprised if 2026 was not the last year Max Verstappen drives for Red Bull.  I think he goes to Mercedes BUT who would be his teammate there??????  Will be interesting!

Some great efforts from:

1. The Kick Sauber team - these guys are coming on!  I mean they were dogs the early part of the season and Gabriel Bortoleto is flat out drivin!  He finished an awesome 6th with teammate Hulkenberg coming in 13th.

2. The Aston Martin team - is the Adrian Newey effect starting to take hold?  Adrian Newey is the aero-engineer extraordinaire that team owner Laurence Stroll bought to come in and get to the top of the grid.  Looks like things are now starting to go in the right direction for the green team.  They qualified 5th and 6th with only the McLarens, LeClerc and Russell ahead of them.  WOW!  And they came home that way too save for a GREAT effort from Bortoleto to split them.

Some efforts to forget:

1.  The Williams Team - this is team that was hoping to challenge at the top of the grid all year.  And they have some, but boy not in Hungary!  And you can't win the Derby on a Donkey!!!!!!  Money matters in F1 and it looks like Williams is feeling the pinch.  Remember at the end of last year when Logan Sargent was in the wall every race and Alex Albon wasn't enough to overcome that.  That means you are spending millions to fix your car and you aren't making any money winning races!  Well, that is a death spiral really and Williams might be at the point to throw in the towel in 2025 and focus all resources on the new regs of 2026.  That will be some hard races for their drivers if so.  But it may be time.  Ask their accountants!

2. Haas and Alpine - just need to never watch the Hungary film ever again EVER!!!!  For Haas, Bearman didn't finish and Ocon went one-stop strategy.  No problem, but you don't do that when your pit stop is on Lap 14 of a 70-lap race!!!!  Come on ref!!!!

For Alpine, bless their hearts, might consider selling concessions with as slow as they were going!!!!

 

It's the summer break now for F1, next up The Dutch Grand Prix on August 31.  Gonna be a minute!!!  Enjoy the time off and watch some High School Football!!!

Thanks for all of that from the last couple of posts, 88.  You are so good at this stuff.  I agree with everything you said but my beef with F1 this year is mostly the same as it was last year.  Last year it was Verstappen jumping out to a huge lead in the standings making it boring.  Max did fade at the end but not enough to make it interesting.  This year McLaren is dominating and it isn't remotely close.  To me that is boring and the 2026 F1 season can't get here soon enough.

I am torn between Oscar and Lando this year.