No F1 thread?

[duncs500]

First race and Hamilton gets the full Ferrari strategy treatment

Yeah, I saw him right up there as the rain came, you could see it on the TV so it had to be heavy, I was shouting at the TV to box him. If the cream of the grid had both gone off in front of you, that means it's bloody slippy.

[IanF]

The way the race was going until Piastri’s off, McLaren are going to have to look at team orders or they’ll keep robbing off each other and the only winner then will be Max!

[mik]

Just watched the highlights. That’ll probably do for me.

F1 debut. One of the most exciting moments of your life. All friends and family there to support. All eyes on you.

Hadjar bins it on the warm-up lap
Doohan bins it on lap1

Shitty conditions, but - wow that must be tough on the young egos

[RobYob]

Piastri's late pass on Hamilton, you could almost feel the rage coming from him. More of that please!

[jamcg]

Did feel for Hadjar, only person to go check on him was Lewis’s dad, all the while every camera in the paddock trained on him. Still it will have been a humbling experience so may have longer term benefits

Bet yuki had a chuckle when we passed lawsons car

Kimi back in p4 now, after his unsafe release penalty was overturned after a Mercedes right of review was successful

[jamcg]

Piastri's late pass on Hamilton, you could almost feel the rage coming from him. More of that please!

Needs to be careful though, he clipped hamiltons wing knocking off his end plate- could have easily been a puncture. Great racing though

[Mito Man]

Ferrari strategy - just useless silence. And they didn’t even split the cars FFS.
Can see why Sainz in his last year with nothing to lose just ended up calling the strategy shots all by himself

[integrale_evo]

Quite enjoyed that, nice to see Norris manage to hang onto pole, and three safety car restarts without choking.

Not sure that Oscar was much quicker when he thought he was, 4 drs zones must have been helping him stay in touch. Good so see him still in the points after his off and what must have been an age getting off the wet grass!

Max looks still best of the rest, which as already said several times is a bit ominous if team mates on other teams keep scrapping and sharing points between them while Max bags consistent podiums.

[Marv]

Cant be too hard on the rookies crashing in those conditions when the experienced drives like saintz and alonso are doing the same.

I agree, they might still be good, but the absolute worldies usually turn up and look impressive right away.

Antonelli has the luck of the greats as well, because unlike the other rookies, when he spun off, he happened to be in an area with loads of run-off! Impressive debut, definitely. Matching Russell's pace in tricky conditions

I thought Hamilton did well, despite the Ferrari doing their usual tricks, he was matching and beating LeClerc at points in the GP, in tricky conditions in car that's not familiar to him.

Was nice to see Albon get 5th too.

[GG.]

All very hard to draw conclusions from other than that Lando and McLaren will win the championship

That and that we all need to watch F3 as it sounds much better.

Anyway - enough trolling from me. Was a much more exciting race than I thought and I think this year will be great. 4 teams likely to be dukeing it out in all likelihood.

[Mito Man]

Have to give it a few races but I have a feeling the Mclaren will dominate.
Max is currently the strongest driver in the wet so making that Red Bull look better than it is.

[integrale_evo]

True, in the drying conditions during the first half the mclaren pair had pulled out something like an 18 second gap while also being kinder on their tyres.

If it had continued drying with a swap to slicks and a normal no safety car race I think they would have disappeared down the road.

[John]

Hamilton on pole, didn't expect to see that!

[Mito Man]

I totally forgot it’s a sprint weekend!
Let’s see how turn 1 goes tomorrow, I expect Verstrapon to do his usual pushing anyone beside him off track.

[GG.]

These early morning F1 races are bloody annoying - its almost impossible to avoid finding out the results unless you go completely cold turkey on social media and news outlets for the whole weekend

[DeskJockey]

Hamilton on pole, didn't expect to see that!

That was a happy thing to see!

[Mito Man]

Just seen the highlights, wonder how much the more stringent rear wing tests have affected Mclaren after those onboards from Australia which made the FIA bring forwards the technical directives. Still the fastest car out there though. Norris outbraked himself and Piastri didn’t seem to get the most out of the car. Consistency is really an issue for the McLaren boys.
Mind you the Ferrari looked like it had more lap time left in it too. The competitiveness of the Red Bull of Verstappen is the big surprise here. Lawson is absolutely hopeless and far worse than Perez. Just bin him and put Tsunoda in there. There’s no talent to hone or refine. He’s utterly out of his depth in F1.

[Mito Man]

Just noticed the Ferrari seems to be running quite an asymmetric setup - the steering wheel is being held right to go straight. Unless it’s just the camera angle or shonky Ferrari alignment.
Only see that in oval racing.

[nuttinnew]

[Marv]

Gives a nice POV of how close Hamilton's and Verstappen's Sprint Quali lap was. Verstappen certainly seems to be able to brake deeper into the corner than Hamilton and make up much of the lost ground... I have a feeling he'll use that come the first corner of the actual sprint race...