[SilentEngine]

I may be going against the grain here. We all want exciting races, but what happened yesterday at the first safety car restart was downright dangerous, caused by some silly safety car rules and impatient drivers at the back.

Safety car rules need to change. Like what Bottas said, they leave it till the very last moment to turn the safety car lights off, and the lead driver doesn't really have much time or space to build a gap. And the drivers at the back have absolutely no clue on what's going on at the front.

Track itself is good, but doesn't look like it's suitable for racing (ability to make the track race-ready quickly after an incident). Was the second red flag to clear Storll's car really needed? It should have been just a safety car or even a VSC. Talking about VSC, i don't remember if there was ever a VSC this season. Has this been done away with?

[Red Liner]

Standing starts are far safer and they should stop this whole safety car business.

[turbowhistle]

I can't wrap my head around that Romain Grosjean finished this GP when all of the drama unfolded in front of him. The second collision was downright dangerous and shouldn’t have happened in the first place. My first thought was regarding Grosjean and I felt all the crashes have made him ready just for such cases I just hope FIA doesn’t remove this circuit from 2021 calendar.

But what a race I must say, Albon must have thanking his stars that Bottas was between him and Lewis. The Kid must be relieved now and Horner will not trouble him for this season at least.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

Was the second red flag to clear Storll's car really needed? It should have been just a safety car or even a VSC. Talking about VSC, i don't remember if there was ever a VSC this season. Has this been done away with?

The red flag was to get the conveyor belt repaired which protects the tyre barrier.

[KPR]

Originally Posted by turbowhistle

But what a race I must say, Albon must have thanking his stars that Bottas was between him and Lewis. The Kid must be relieved now and Horner will not trouble him for this season at least.

Late bloomer Albon here. He was just among points but definitely couldn't get what his fellow mate Max had taken out of similar car. Better he position himself among the top 5 to make future races interesting. So I don't think Horner will be happy for what Albon achieved in Mugello. More top 5 finishes and few podiums expected from him this season.

[akp666]

Is no one going to talk at all about Kimi's radio? "For what?" "FOR WHAAAAATTTT?"

I knew the moment the engineer repeated himself, Kimi was going to shout!

[fast_n_curious]

There was no question on the top2 positions but Albon finishing in podium was bit surprising based on where he started from in the grid.
Good solid race for Perez also, would love to see him land a drive in 2021.
So far this year Lando Norris has impressed the most I think, what do you people think?
Ferrari have just made wrong decision after wrong decision in their aero package and car overall design, sad they will be struggling in 2021 also.

Since Mercedes complete dominance in F1, the fun of watching the sport is diminishing day by day. Egerly waiting for 2022 when wholesome changes has been proposed for the sports

[kar_thikr]

Originally Posted by turbowhistle

I can't wrap my head around that Romain Grosjean finished this GP when all of the drama unfolded in front of him. The second collision was downright dangerous and shouldn’t have happened in the first place. My first thought was regarding Grosjean and I felt all the crashes have made him ready just for such cases I just hope FIA doesn’t remove this circuit from 2021 calendar.

Yes, Romain had one crazy race. But we have to think about Kimi also, He was in the First crash, he slammed into the back of Verstappen, He was one among the 1st to the scene and avoid the carnage in the 1st safety car restart and he was the Lead Ferrari Powered car on track as well. Nice to see the FIRE is still there in the ICE Man.

About the Track, I doubt the track will produce a similar race next year, as the teams now have almost 3 race worth of data from this single one.

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by akp666

Is no one going to talk at all about Kimi's radio? "For what?" "FOR WHAAAAATTTT?"

I knew the moment the engineer repeated himself, Kimi was going to shout!

He has become irritable, rude and disrespectful over the radio in the last couple of years. Respect to the engineer for putting up with it and staying calm and professional.

[Himanshu809]

Originally Posted by prasathlr

Wow! What a crazy start! That too back to back weekends of red flag! Netflix would be salivating with all these drama for 2020! DTS is going to be crazy this year!

Disappointing to see Albon struggle so much! He has dropped from P4 to P7 after race restarts! His confidence must be rock bottom to perform so bad compared to last year! Wonder what changed?

Damn! So absolutely humiliating for Ferrari to be overtaken by every single car after starting P3 that too in their 1000th GP! I pray that this disappointing performance causes some kind of media backlash in Italy for Ferrari to change their approach!

I'm really excited about DTS Season 3. I really got to know so much about drivers' personality and traits through the show.

Add to that, the way they shoot the show is beautiful, seeing all that rubber burn on the tarmac and engines screaming is pure music to my ears

[Himanshu809]

Originally Posted by McLaren Rulez

He has become irritable, rude and disrespectful over the radio in the last couple of years. Respect to the engineer for putting up with it and staying calm and professional.

I think after a certain point age and experience might have made him less polite. Usually it's the younger players who are polite as they are staying out and they want to build good relationships with their team-mates. Because a driver is nothing without a good team. Especially in this day and age.

[deetjohn]

A brilliant analysis by Palmer on the carnage. Absolutely spot on.

https://youtu.be/Dpap9TUIdg8

The Safety Car should get the penalty and a grid drop for next race. And Maylander should probably follow Bottas on track when SC is out next.

I also love the synchronised split by Kimi and Vettel when it goes mental just Infront of them.

Jokes aside, really relieved all drivers are safe as this was madness.

[sgiitk]

Have the cars been permitted to become too fast. Two Red Flags during the race plus one earlier indicates this.

I think the F1 bosses have to take some measures to restore sanity.

[F1 Freak]

Tuscan GP analysis

Everything was going as per schedule in the high adrenaline world of Formula 1. Pre-Season testing had just ended and the motorsports enthusiasts were waiting for the Australian GP in March. But before that could happen the world sunk into a terrible pandemic of Coronavirus resulting in the cancellation of the season opener along with several other races, delaying the whole season. As the cases started declining a green flag was given to races behind closed doors and a new schedule with new tracks was released. To compensate for the races lost some tracks were hosting multiple events. This led to a doubleheader in the season opener at Red Bull Ring in Austria. In Italy, a triple header was announced which consisted of Monza, and 2 tracks that hadn’t hosted an F1 race for quite a few years. Imola, the track which took the life of the driver said to be the greatest of all time, and Mugello, the track which hosted the race this weekend.


Nestled in the foothills of Tuscan mountains, it’s a sight to behold when seen from the air. The 5.254 km swooping circuit consists of 15 extremely fast and flowy turns with drivers pulling 4-5 Gs, while some like Arrabiata 1 and 2, Casanova and Savelli pulling stomach-turning 5 and has a 1.141 km straight. Although MotoGP is a regular here, this was the first time it hosted a Formula 1 race. No other driver has driven on this circuit except Kimi Raikkonen’s famous first outing with Sauber for testing. This historic track is owned by Scuderia Ferrari who also celebrated their 1000th GP this weekend by launching a burgundy red livery for car and racing suits of the drivers to revisit their history. This was the first race of the season which was not behind closed doors allowing 3000 fans.
Just one practice session later the track became a love for most of the drivers due to its nature with Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes topping all the 3.The qualifying results were as following




Before the race, Max Verstappen had an engine issue which the mechanics did rectify although in vain, which was evident at the start. At the race start, Bottas shot into the lead from the second and took the first from Hamilton while Verstappen had an engine problem which caused him to slow down. Along with Bottas, Stroll, Leclerc and even Albon got a terrific start. But when they reached turn 2 chaos reigned which included Vettel losing his front wing due to contact with Sainz, who was already spun around by a racing point and Grosjean taking a quick spinning trip into gravel. Also, Gasly shunted into the rear of Raikkonen which caused him to go into Verstappen leading him to have a gearbox failure, resulting in DNF of both Gasly and Verstappen. This chain of events led to a safety car during which all the teams tried to repair the damages caused by the crash. The safety car went in at the ending of lap 6, which made Bottas the de facto safety car according to the rules, which means the race will start when he starts accelerating. Bottas cleverly slowed down and then instantly started accelerating right before the turn. But before he had even started accelerating, once more there was a crash at the back. Russell created a gap between him and the others at the front and went right. This made the drivers behind George think Bottas had already started and they started accelerated resulting in Giovinazzi going into the back of Nicholas Latifi starting a chain that also took the toll of Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz retiring all 4.This was the second safety car, which turned into the race being red-flagged in lap 9. During the red flag, Ocon's brakes were found to be burning which lead him to retire too, taking the total DNF count to 7 and promoting Russell to 10th, shining a little ray of hope for him finishing in points for the first time. At the 3rd start, which was a standing one, Lewis took the lead over Bottas and raced away. The laps that followed saw Leclerc being overtaken easily by Stroll, Ricciardo, and Albon. On lap 44 Stroll had a major accident as he lost the rear on the curbs and shunted hard into the tyre barriers, fortunately coming out unscathed. This also led to the second red flag of the race, which lasted longer as the tyre barriers had to be repaired. The fourth start too saw Lewis having a fantastic start and leading the race. We saw Daniel Ricciardo in podium places for a while, but his hopes ended soon as Albon beautifully overtook him at a corner which gave the youngster his first podium ever and Thailand became the 29th different country to be represented on the F1 podium. From there on the race was pretty much decided as Mercedes took another 1-2 with Lewis winning his 90th race and Bottas finishing second. Raikkonen finished inside points despite getting a time penalty for crossing the pit line. Hamilton also took the point for the fastest lap of the race.


One more interesting fact about this race was that all the 3 podium finishers from the previous race retired. The last time this happened was in 2001 Italian GP when Juan Pablo Montoya, Rubens Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher retired from the US GP. All in all, this was one of the most eventful races of the season so far and probably the nature of the track contributes in this too which saw many fans demanding Mugello to be added as a season regular. Will it happen? We sure hope it does, until then we have to wait 2 weeks for the Russian GP at the Sochi Aerodrome which is one track that suits Valtteri Bottas. Ciao.