Saturday Morning of F1

Good morning! I’m your substitute teacher today. And lucky you, that means new course material! Today’s syllabus is F1 racing. The season kicked off last weekend and has its second race today! Let’s catch up on all the news.

Red Bull and Max

Yes, this will be the forth year in a row that Max will win the Drivers Championship, and the third year in a row that Red Bull will win the Constructors Championship. The top of the competition is already assured. Last year, Max won the opening race in Bahrain by 12 seconds. This year, he won by 22 seconds. He was also able to pit, which incurs around a 20 second loss of time, without losing the lead. On the plus side for Red Bull, Sergio Perez was second. A distant second, sure, but also well clear of third. Now, Max can win the both the championships on his own, but it’s a nice comfort to have a second driver that provide a cushion. After all, the teams are paid on Constructor Championship positions. Also, this will continue through next year. 2026 will introduce new regulations, primarily engine based, that can level the playing field. Red Bull will be going to Ford engines and they haven’t been around the sport for a long time.

So, everyone thinks the sport is boring with Max dominating. Of course, that’s the history of F1. In the time I’ve watched, there was first Schumacher at Ferrari from 2000 to 2004 , then Vettel at Red Bull from 2010 to 2013, then Hamilton in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. Now Max, from 2021 to today. Dominance is the history of the sport, the fun is everything else.

Red Bull and Horner

Christian Horner is the team principal of Red Bull Motorsport. He’s been the center of a shit ton of drama to start this year. He’s also a starlet of the Netfilx series Drive to Survive due to his love of the camera.

Anyway, just prior to the start of the season he was accused of inappropriate and controlling behavior over a coworker. An independent investigation was launched, with the goal of reaching a conclusion before the start of the season.

The result of that investigation announced on the day before the first weekend of racing was that all charges were dismissed and Horner was cleared of any wrong doing. Of course, one should understand the ownership of Red Bull. 49% is owned by Mark Mateschitz, inherited from his farther, and 51% is owned by Thai billionaire Chalerm Yoovidhva. RumoUr was, Red Bull wanted Horner booted, but the other 51% didn’t.

So, last weekend, on Friday the FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem (FIA owns the rights and manages the rules and regulations for F1) and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali had a private meeting with Horner to discuss the issue. Nothing came from it and Horner remained with the team.

As an aside, Mohammed Ben Sulayem is now under a new investigation for his actions in last year’s Saudi Arabi Grand Prix. He had the marshals overturn a 10 second penalty on Alonso that would have moved him from the podium in third to fourth position. I’m sure he’ll be better behaved this year.

Back to the Horner situation, after being cleared, there was an anonymous leak of documents and pictures during the race weekend that aimed to implicate Horner. No one was ever able to verify these items and Horner was adamant about not responding. Also, one of the pictures was a dick pic. (Let me know if you want the link, sicko)

Before the race, Jos Verstappen (Max’s dad) insisted that Horner had to leave the team. Max was also asked to give a statement of support for Horner, which he did not do. Oddly, Jos was not welcomed to this weekend’s race. Honestly, he shouldn’t be allowed in an F1 paddock due to his past history anyway.

Now. just two days ago, the women accuser of Horner has been suspended, with pay, indefinitely.

Oh, and the investigation into Horner has snared yet another person. This one is from Red Bull proper, Helmut Marko. He’s the racing advisor of Red Bull racing, but doesn’t work for them. Apparently, during the investigation it turns out he was responsible for leaking information to the media. He’s already admitted he will probably be suspended and miss the next race in Australia in two week. Plus, Max has threatened and maybe has in his contract that he can leave the team if Marko leaves. And, of course, Max gave a statement supporting Marko.

Phew. At least for Red Bull, any news is good news, no matter how terrible.

Alpine

Enough of Red Bull, there’s other drama. Alpine finished 6th of 10 teams last year, and solid mid pack finish for a mid pack team. They put a lot of resources into improving their car for this year and, well, they failed. The day before the first race of the season, their technical director and head of aero both resigned due to the lack of competitiveness of the car. Their two drivers finished dead last in qualifying, but finished 17th and 18th (out of 20) in the race due to other car issues. Then this week, another engineer resigned. They are well and truly fucked.

Hamilton

Remember the previous dominant driver with Mercedes? Well he threw a whole wrench into the driver shuffle for the year by announcing he’s going to Ferrari next year. So he has a lame duck year with the only team he’s ever raced for, and totally screwed up the Silly Season. (That’s usually after the summer break when rumors fly everywhere about drivers future next season) The other issue this brings up is that a lot of drivers’ contracts are up this year, so we’re going to see a ton of movement this next offseason.

Another issue here is that Carlos Sainz is the 2nd driver at Ferrari this year, and his seat is the one that Hamilton will be taking. So the questions are how motivated are Hamilton and Sainz knowing they’re not going to be competing with their current teams next year. And who is going to fill their seats next year?

A new wrinkle for Sainz is that he has to miss this week’s race because he has appendectomy surgery yesterday. That means Ferrari has to turn to their reserve driver, Olivier Bearman (half man, half bear, half pig), who at 18 years old is the youngest Ferrari F1 driver ever. He did snag pole in his F2 car for the weekend, but could only qualify 11th for the F1 race after one practice session, while his teammate qualified 2nd. No doubt the team only hopes he runs a full race distance, and with proper strategy fights his way into the points. (10th or better).

Saturday

Yes, the race last weekend and this weekend is on Saturday. Normally F1 races are held on Sunday. The issue is due to Ramadan. That starts on Sunday. Ramadan is a month of fasting, prayer, and reflection for the Muslim community. As the race is in Saudi Arabi this week, a race can’t be held on Sunday, so it was moved to Saturday. As a result, last week’s race was also held on Saturday. The F1 rules stipulate a minimum of 1 week (7 days) between race, requiring last week’s race to be moved back to match this week’s race requirements.

And finally, the F1 race in Saudi Arabia is today at 11:00am DFO time. This is a shitty street course (DEATH TO STREET COURSES) but due to the seaside layout is also the fastest course in terms of average speed over a lap. This also means the accidents are huge and there will be red flags as a result which will cause significant delays.

In conclusion, there’s a shit ton in F1 besides the winner. This is a living soap opera of racing, so tune in and enjoy.

Footy

Only two matches to mention:

1. Positive: Hippo gets back his Saturday 4:30am (Eastern) fixture. Negative: One of those sides is Everton and they are back on their Disappointing bullshit and will continue it here.
2. Sunday has a proper fixture of Man Shitty and the Pool Boys for the top of the table. Unfortunately, Man Shitty’s Death Star of The Broom and the Striking Viking are fully operation again.