Well what a race we had this weekend for the second of the races in Bahrain!! Where to start? My first thought is that although it was such a shame to see Hamilton’s substitute Russel not get the win after he did everything he had to it was also a real delight to see Sergio Perez get his first victory. The Mexican had performed so well over the last several years and is such a solid driver now and standing on the top step of the podium is well deserved.
Especially as this may well be the last time we see him in F1, I hope that is not the case but his chance at RedBull is still unclear and he may have options for 2022 but a year is a long time in F1 and you are very quickly forgotten when you are not on track. It would a tragedy if this is the end of Sergio’s career but if that is what comes to pass then I don’t think anyone would begrudge him his chance to win.
You cant fail to be impressed by Russel and he has shown his true talent now. I’m sure we all felt gutted for him when everything fell apart for him but the fact is that he has his whole career ahead of him and he will have many more chances to win races. His job last weekend was to show Mercedes that he deserves a race seat in the works car and he did that and then some. This is just the beginning of his story, Merc have found their next megastar and the medium to long term future is very bright for the man from Kings Lynn. He will have to deal with another season in the Williams next year but if he is not a full time driver in the Merc from 2022 then something seriously wrong will have happened.
So what did we think of the new new layout used for the the Sakhir Grand Prix then? It was brilliant in my opinion, the short nature of the track meant that any mistakes were paid for quite heavily and there was no room for error at all. It was fresh, exciting, created overtaking opportunities and being so short it all seemed to be very fast paced as well. Even places that didn’t initially appear to be places where passes might happen saw some moves such as turn four for example where both Norris and Albon found room to get ahead. I think this layout should be used for next years Bahrain Grand Prix.
I’ve spoken about Perez but for Racing Point the race could hardly have been better. After scoring no points the week before to have a win and a third place was exceptional and gives them a lead of ten points over McLaren for third place in the constructors championship. Racing Point deserve it I believe, it would be great to wee them get that result in the last year before they become Aston Martin, they have consistently punched above their wait for years now and third in the standings would be their just deserts.
In other news Romain Grosjean has announced that he will not be back for Abu Dhabi and so his time in F1 is over. Its a shame that his career has to end that way bit I always thought that it would be unlikely he would have healed enough to race at Yas Marina. Mercedes have said that they will make a car available ti him to test as a way to finish his career off properly and give him the chance to get back behind the wheel befored he moves on and that is very kind of them.
Haas’s future has been sorted as they announced mid week that they hace signed Nikita Mazapin and Mick Schumacher on multi year contracts. The Schumacher name will be back in F1 and that is an exciting prospect for next season. I for one will certainly be supporting him, he will have a lot pf pressure on him but I think he will handle it very well.
All these youngsters getting their F1 chance and showing that they are the real deal is fantastic for the sport of F1 and shows that the future of the sport is secure which is very nice to see. If they can get into decent cars in the future then we should have some exciting years ahead of us.
One race left then and then F1 2020 will be over! It seems to have all gone by so quickly. I’m hopeful that Abu Dhabi will be just as exciting as the last few races, we may see Lewis back to reclaim his seat and finish the season in style, we will see who can get the coveted third spot in the constructors and there will be some goodbyes as well. I will post my race blog early next week and then as we head to Christmas I will be writing a season review which I am really looking forward to doing. Until then enjoy the Abu Dhabi weekend.
My F1 talk 