Hey all, I admit I have been focused on Football since the champions league final, not just other sports so to sort it out the next few posts will be on other sports. I have been meaning to do reports on the races but some of the best races have been where the other major events have taken place. So before the Belgian Grand Prix starts the second half of the season I thought I would do a halftime review. The season has been a rerun of last season's battle between Ferarri's Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton.
 |
| Hamilton is back as defending champion showing of the Halo |
The season started off with as usual new regulations and new drivers. One of the major regulation changes was in the respect of safety after deaths and injuries in the head like Jules Bianchi's fatal crash in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix all the F1 teams now have a mandatory cockpit protection otherwise known as the halo to deflect debris from the head.
 |
| All go as the race gets underway at Melbourne |
There were also driver changes for some of the teams. After returning for one more year Felipe Massa retired at the end of last season so second-year driver Lance Stroll is now the leader of the team as they brought in Russian rookie Sergey Sirotkin. Sauber also introduced a rookie in 2017 Formula 2 champion Charles Leclerc. Also, 2 teams made a change in engine manufacturers. McLaren took out the Honda engine after 2 years of unreliability and performance and switched to Renault's engine. Meanwhile, Torro Rosso who had used the Renault engine since 2014 swapped for the Honda engine.
The season started off in Melbourne with expectations of Lewis vs Seb got off again but it was given to Vettel as he took advantage of 2 safety cars to pass Hamilton an held on to the lead. Round one to Vettel. The next race was at Bahrain again Vettel won after Hamilton had a 5 place penalty and made contact with Red Bull's Max Verstappen. With 2 races down it looked like Ferrari had finally, not just matched, outpaced Mercedes after 4 years of dominance. However, relief came for Mercedes as Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo winning the Chinese Grand Prix, this gave hope that the Ferrari's could be challenged. The last of the flyaway races was Azerbaijan which became one of the best races of the season so far, it all started off with a collision between Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Force India's Esteban Ocon along with that was Williams' Sergey Sirotkin. Then on lap 11, Hulkenberg lost control of his car and crashed at the side of the track which forced him to retire. Then it was all calm until lap 40 when the Red Bulls collided on the start/finish straight which forced them to retire. If it couldn't be more chaotic on lap 49 Valtteri Bottas who was leading at the time had a puncture of the debris from the Red Bulls crash. Hamilton won the race and took over as the leader in the championship as the Europe season began.
 |
| Red Bull's Verstappen and Ricciardo collide in Azerbaijan |
The first European race was in Spain and Hamilton won to extend his lead at the top of the championship. Then came the race that has always been seen as the glitz and glamour but boring Grand Prix Monaco. Ricciardo won despite having an engine issue mid-race which usually is a fatal flaw. The next race was Canada which had a crazy start when the Williams of Lance Stroll and the Torro Rosso of Brendan Hartley collided and Hartley was in the air for a few seconds but took the air out of everyone's lungs. Then there was controversy as model Winnie Harlow flew the chequered flag a lap too early which forced the race to finish two laps early as the rule is they go back one lap early.
 |
| Brendon Hartley in the air after his crash. |
The next race was the returning French Grand Prix with it's first Grand Prix since 2008. Hamilton won the race with ease as he outpaced everyone in the field including leaving Vettel in 5th place just over a minute ahead of him. In Austria, everything that could go wrong for Mercedes did as both drivers retired with technical issues. Red Bull's Max Verstappen won the race and because of Hamilton retiring Vettel led the championship by one point going into Silverstone. Then at Silverstone, it started off terribly for Hamilton as he collided with Raikkonen and he dropped down to 18th. Vettel had a battle with Bottas for the majority of the race but held on for the win while Hamilton came from 18th to 2nd.
Then in Germany Vettel had a stroke of bad luck as he was leading the race from the start of the race. However, as the lap started the rain started on the track Vettel aquaplaned off the track and crashed into the barrier. Hamilton took the lead and won the race and retook the lead in the championship by 17 points. The last race before the break was at Hungary and Hamilton had eased to a comfortable win and extended the lead to 24 points.
This Sunday is the Belgian Grand Prix one of the top European races and the first race back from the summer holidays. Though the races had stopped headlines had been made with Force India having new owners after being placed in administration during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. Also there have been driver changes with Fernando Alonso leaving F1 at the end of the season to race in IndyCar in America, Ricciardo announced he was leaving Red Bull for Renault, Renault's Carlos Sainz signed a deal to take over the McLaren seat left by Alonso and Torro Rosso's Pierre Gasly was taking over the seat at Red Bull.
 |
| 2 time Champion Fernando Alonso will leave |
I'll be back on Sunday after the race has concluded.
KRO Mark
Comments
Post a Comment