F1, Barcelona GP: the report cards of the best
1. Who has seen them? Max isn’t winning, he’s arranging the World Championship as he pleases. So dominant that it was never framed and never made the news again. First in PL1, in PL2, in PL3. First in qualifying, first in the first corner and in the last one. Always first. First when they tell him to slow down, first when he demolishes the fastest lap two minutes later. First with the hard, with the medium, with the soft, in the dry and in the wet. If they put intermediates under the sun, he’d be first there too. He has a car that’s a rocket, but that the other didn’t even keep on the track in three out of seven qualifying sessions. A sweet boredom, for Milton Keynes, which by now is talked about only for the outings of Marko and Max himself, at Montmeló in the Ibra version with the media: insolent and cheeky, like a rebellious boy he was. An arrogance that is not a problem: indeed, it is fine if you are the best, because you can afford it. It worries me more if it comes from those who are under the current hierarchies and have not won anything.
2. Mercedes. Well, the one who took a bath of humility was Mercedes, who sent Elliott to design the garden of Brackley and abandoned the philosophy without bellies, aligning with the winning dictates. Certainly Red Bull won’t stand by and it will take a long time: yesterday Hamilton took 24 seconds off the winner. But they have at least clear ideas in the team, and in fact Lewis should stay where he is.
3. Zhou and Tsunoda. It’s difficult to define where their merits begin and where the limits of their teammates begin, the fact is that Zhou scores points for the second time this season after having just gotten rid of Yuki, who gets penalties for this. Too bad for Tsunoda because he was having a great weekend, here he still finds his place even just for the photo with Porzingisof which it could be the billiard cue.
Kristaps Porzingis and Yuki Tsunoda standing next to each other looks unreal 😳 😬 pic.twitter.com/NwQTS5Bd5b
—FIBA (@FIBA) June 5, 2023
F1, Barcelona GP: the report cards of the worst
3. Fernando Alonso. Williams was there (lower than Sampdoria, will the color bring bad luck?), Bottas was there (someone swears they saw him on the track), the direction was there too, losing five out of four overtakings, but i want to give it for once to Nando, which then when it happens again. Machine perhaps not at the usual level, but for its own error in qualifying. He’s still loved for the prosecutorial radio team on theimpeding from Gasly to Verstappen.
2. Sergio Perez. While Verstappen commands free practice, qualifying, the race and while next weekend is free he wins Le Mans and the Champions League, Checo sinks for the third time in seven qualifications. Then he comes back in the race, but it’s simply his duty. Indeed, he even does less than his duty, because Russell is in any case ahead of him even though he starts further back and has an inferior car. Sure, it can’t be easy when your boss can’t wait for you to go to the wall to shoot zero at you and maybe even to get the message across that Red Bull wins because Max is there, not because of the car, not whether anyone ever wants to change the rules.
1. Ferrari. Draw a line and start again. The SF-23 definitively collapses in the Grand Prix which should have marked its rebirth, in the spirit and intentions of Vasseur. Which seemed to be corroborated by Sainz’s second place in qualifying: but it was a Q3 without Perez, Russell and in fact without Alonso, who had a crippled car. Who was he supposed to steal the front row from, from Hülkenberg? The only one was Hamilton (and in fact Mercedes were very disappointed by Saturday) but otherwise at least the top-3 was guaranteed. And then Sunday, which must have reminded the fans of the torment of 2020. Indeed, even worse, because three years ago Ferrari knew why it was being stripped of paint on the straights, here question marks pile up: Leclerc says that the car is impossible to understand, the team can’t explain why this is a fast car only at a low fuel load. Plus the degradation problem, with Charles killing the hards after 16 laps, when Hamilton makes the softs work well beyond the Pirelli window of use (18 laps). After seven races, the proclamations of February (which lasted until Monte-Carlo) are to be thrown away and we think about next year. It’s an eternity Groundhog Day. Only this isn’t a movie and there’s no Bill Murray to make us laugh.
#Scoreboard #Barcelona #podium #FormulaPassion