As I sit here reflecting upon the race weekend in Bahrain my overriding feeling, along with all of us who follow the sport is one of relief that Romain Grosjean managed to escape from what was one of the worst accidents seen in the sport for many many years. There is no doubt that Sunday could have been a very dark day for the sport and it is testament to all the hard work done over decades by the people pushing for greater safety that he is alive and although in hospital has no worse injuries’ than minor burns.
As I watched the incident live and saw the instant explosion as the car impacted the barrier my first thought was that the chances of survival were minimal and we had just witnessed another driver lose his life to the sport that he loved. The fact that we saw him climb from the flaming wreckage is a relief to us all and a very stark reminder that this sport that we are all passionate about is still mighty dangerous and those guys put their life on the line when they are strapped into those machines.
There is also no doubt that the Halo device, something that I personally along with many others didn’t approve of when it first came in, saved Grosjean’s life and from now on there can be no more discussion about its use, It is needed, it is a good idea and F1 is quite right to be using it, I have no problem with admitting that I was wrong on that one.
There are question that will need to be answered when the investigation is complete such as why the car was able to go through the barrier and why the wreck exploded in flames. On the first point the Halo itself may have played a part as it did look like with the energy of the impact it prised open the barrier. The second point about the fire is more difficult and a fire of that size is very rare in modern F1. Everything is done to try and ensure that there is no explosion when a car has a large impact. The are questions that only the sports leaders can answer and I have no doubt that there will be things learnt from this accident that will be fed into future safety developments.
Aside from all that we did actually get a race on Sunday and it was another wining performance from Hamilton who, despite saying afterwards that he had to work hard looked pretty much in control throughout. Verstappen as always put in a valiant effort in second but ultimately didn’t have the pace to win as RedBull scored a rare double podium as Albon benefited from Perez’s engine failure to finish third. It wasd a good result from him and good points for the team but he is still not showing the pace needed to keep his place in the team. It remains to be seen if he will be there next season.
With todays breaking news that Lewis Hamilton has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in self isolation it could well mean that with Abu Dhabi just a week after this weekend’s Sakhir race we may have seen that last of Lewis in an F1 car this season. Who knows he may be fine for the final race but it is cutting it a bit fine timewise. I wish Lewis well and he only has minor symptoms so he is doing fine but this twist does present someone with the opportunity of stepping into the best car on the grid for at least a race maybe two. Stofel Vandorne would seem to be the favorite for this as he is the designated reserve driver but Mercedes may wish to out George Russel in the car as he is tipped as a future Merc driver and it would be a good chance for them to evaluate him further.
Valterri Bottas tough season continued in Bahrain a she only came home eighth after an early setback and one feels that he just wants the season to be over. He is looking like a beaten man right now and he needs to get his head strong for next year.
The fight for third place in the constructors title race took a strong turn towards McLaren after they scored a fourth-fifth place finish as Racing Point has a terrible race with no points scored at all. Lance Stroll was flipped upside down by Kyvat at the restart and then as already mentioned Perez missed out on another solid podium with car failure in the closing laps. I cant help but feel that Racing Point will rue missed opportunities earlier in the season where they cpould have scored big points that would have given them a points buffer to McLaren and Renault for that third place. How that battle plays out in the final two race weekends will be very interesting to see.
So now we have the Sakhir Grand Prix to look forward to around the outer loop in Bahrain, what we can expect we don’t know as the layout hasn’t been used before but I am excited about it and the unknown makes it more interesting. I expect to have plenty more points of interest to discuss in next weeks post race blog.
My F1 talk 