Champions don’t make mistakes.
And that’s why 2024 will be the year that Lewis who missed out on Q2 for only the second time in three years at the China GP will still not win an eighth world championship.
The weekend started out good enough with Hamilton finally vanquishing George Russell in a qualifying session. Albeit it was the Sprint quali, and not the real deal where George still owned Lewis.
In the sprint Lewis did own Lando, who also won’t be champion any time soon, because his reaction time at the start of the sprint was like my grandmother on quaaludes.
Like I said, Champions don’t make mistakes.
The best Lewis could do was second in the sprint, but ultimately that’s because Max Verstappen and Adrian Newey have somehow found a way to transport humans at the speed of light.
Just ask Lando who once again was a podium bridesmaid in the main feature despite all his effort. Lewis had to settle for 18th and was runner up for driver of the day behind Lando since he took his Mercedes Gremlin all the way up to ninth.
Speaking of Gremlins, Williams cars and chassis are full of them, so the best thing to come out of the weekend for the team was this sweet panda lid from Alex Albon.
This helmet design however provided no luck to the Williams crew as Logan Sargeant continued to drive like he was hopped up on ayahuasca tea and hallucinating mid-track.
He was joined in this endeavor by Lance Stroll who parked his car in to the back of Danny Ric who must have had flashbacks from his old days of similar coming togethers with his old homie Verstappen in an actual Red Bull and not an “RB”. Speaking of that team name, how have they not reached out to Arby’s roast beef for a sponsorship yet?
While Stroll and Sargeant continue to menace the grid and make us wonder how much money they had to pay to bribe officials to keep their super licenses, a reminder that the tall drink of water known as Ollie Bearman, who hasn’t raced in a while, has 6 more points than Logie and only three less than Lancey and is still available to anyone who would like him to drive their car.
I bet Valtteri Bottas would like to offer his services to other teams too as his Stake Sauber, despite VB’s great effort this weekend, blew up like Los Alamos in the later stages of the China GP.
Also of note, it took me this long to realize that the producers of the F1 intro are sick and cruel. Just as they flash VB on the screen, the next scene is a shot of a wheel nut flying in space, which has to be some kind of wicked taunt about the tire failures that seem to happen at every other Stake pit stop.
Wheel problems even happened to Pierre Gasly’s Alpine this weekend, as he drove away and almost lost a tire before the team stopped him and regrouped.
Speaking of regrouping, Bottas’ teammate Zhou Guanyu pretty much emotionally lost it at the end of the China GP, becoming the first Chinese driver to compete at his home racer. He had a hell of a great weekend given the state of his car and so I wonder if this post race moment was happy relief or sadness that he can’t seem to get a fast ride?
Zhou hasn’t signed a new contract yet, but it would be a shame to kick him out of the show just yet. Unlike a lot of other rookies, he’s been professional, competitive, funny, self-effacing and overall a representative of the kind of positivity we need in the sport. He and Bottas prove that nice guys don’t finish last, only Logan Sargeants do.
On the other side of the likability coin is Kevin Magnussen. While you gotta love his competitiveness, he’s basically become like like the soul of Karate Kid’s John Creese inside the body of Johnny Lawrence. Kmag just goes around trying to hit anyone who tries to pass. This weekend Kmag gave old Yuki the kick in the huevos in China.
Checo’s huevos at Red Bull are pretty solid as he continues to hold up his end of the bargain better than he ever has as a second driver with another podium. Sergio did the honorable thing at the start and didn’t even try to compete for the lead with Max.
Max in turn who’d finished thirteen seconds ahead of everyone else in the 19 lap sprint, decided to give the field a gift by only finishing thirteen seconds ahead of everyone in the 56 lap main race.
Who knows maybe Max will only win the championship by like 150 points this year as well? It all remains to be seen, but we’ll find out what’s next in two weeks at the Monaco of Florida, aka Miami, a race where passing is rare and the people and the water features are made of plastic. See y’all then.
I think Stroll's days are finally numbered...