It has been 24 years since a Frenchman stood in the TOP podium in F1! Great Job Pierre Gasly!
Good to see both McLaren in the TOP 5 in this race! A great tribute to Bruce McLaren who passed away 50 years ago! (1937-1970) Even with just 4 F1 GP wins, his name lives on all over the world synonymous with supercars and F1 👍
Luck? You can count the points advantage he could have now (68 vs Bottas and 72 vs Max instead of current 47 and 54) without that Haas parking there, or without that unnecessary Safety Car, or without that badly signaled Pit Lane closed entry... is that luck? 😉 He had the victory totally under control and was taken away from him with an unfair penalty 🤔
No, it’s Gasly who had luck today and won the lottery of the Safety Car and the closed Pit Lane Entry. Hamilton deserved the victory, and Sainz the 2nd position, but Gasly was really lucky! Congratulations anyway!
I’m not sure it did have a negative effect on Mercedes: Hamilton was very comfortably leading the race until the SC, and after the penalty his comeback was impressive in this track where overtaking is not easy, and with the aero settings designed to be leading the race (= not high maximum speed)... but probably it did have effect on Red Bull! 😲 With Albon finishing in the last position, and Max in his worst qualy of the year and with his worst pace and race position of the year until the DNF
Mainly because despite all the talk of Bottas 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 literally no one believes he can beat Hamilton over a season. No one even thinks he's going to get close, hell probably win 2-3 races at best... at least when Schumacher was winning Barichello was close enough that they had to ask him to move over now and again
I think the domination game has reached 'critical mass', 4 years is domination - 7 years is plain tedious for all but the most ardent supporter (Albert in other words) and sooner or later something will have to change.
I plan to enjoy it to the fullest! 😉
At least Bottas is allowed to fight with Hamilton (as Nico Rosberg was), and in fact he started the season leading the Championship. When Bottas beats Hamilton in Qualy (he was just 0.069s slower in Monza!) and starts the race from Pole Position, Bottas is probably winning the race and beating Hamilton, something that Barrichello, Massa, and Irvine had forbidden under contract when they were Schumacher team mates. Do you really think that Ferrari domination era with team orders since race 1 to favour Schumacher, was better? I think that was a really boring era 🥱, because you knew which cars were to finish the race first and second, and in which order, because it was written in the contract... at least Mercedes allows their drivers to compete with each other. And yes, Hamilton is better over a season... are we to blame him for it?
😁 Yes, I’m enjoying these 7 years a lot, because my favorite team is winning 🥰. I can't get tired of winning! 😉 Nor have I tired of seeing Marc Marquez win in MotoGP year after year (6 Titles in MotoGP, and 2 in smaller categories), or Sebastien Loeb in rallys (9 WRC Titles), because they are my favorites
I can understand that fans from other F1 teams are tired of this domination, but when with the same rules for everyone, Mercedes does it better, are we to blame them for it? Or punish them for being the best, adding ballast only to their car, or to their best driver? I don’t think so.
Blame those who, with even more budget (like Ferrari), have been unable to beat Mercedes in seven years. New technical and budget regulation changes in 2022 can certainly change the current situation... but until then, I plan to enjoy it to the fullest! 😉
at least Mercedes allows their drivers to compete with each other
Is this reeeeally true though? When they are able to race they get stuff like "stay off the curbs" and "only use mode X" etc. I think that if Bottas ever became a serious threat for Lewis they would not allow anything to take away their journey towards beating every record in the book
