We could talk about the race, but having watched at least a recap of every single F1 race since 1969, yesterday’s Bahrain grand prix was the most boring race I have ever watched. I basically had it on in the background and looked up from time to time to see if anything had changed at all since 2022.
If you’re a Red Bull fan, content to see Max Verstappen ring up another championship on his way to being the greatest driver of all time, you’d probably disagree. As a Lewis fan, I understand. I did not at all find Mercedes almost decade-long dominance boring. I relished it. I laughed at the Orange Army. Now I am paying karmically for my sins.
Speaking of karma, most notable about yesterday is that for the first time in a year, Sergio Perez did not drop the ball when given the second fastest car on the grid (you know Max is always getting the better package). He took the Bull home to second place as expected, thus closing the door, for now, on a mid-season swaparoo with Danny Ric for the seat.
Speaking of Danny Ric, well, everyone saw the team orders and Yuki’s tantrums. If you did not, basically on the cool down lap after the race, Yuki took an angry dive bomb down on his teammates car, locked the wheels and almost went full send in to the Honey Badger’s side pod. When asked about it, Danny flashed his big smile and said, “Yahrw, let’s just call it a bit of immaturity.”
Which, when you think about, almost all these drivers, save for grandpa Hamilton and great grandpa Alonso, are all in their early to mid-twenties. It’s kind of amazing that kids in the pressure cooker of F1 aren’t reported more often for doing blow with hookers in Monaco hotel rooms, or smashing their cars in to each other in regular bouts of insouciance. For Yuki, who ran as good or better a race than Danny, what’s a little middle finger in the form of an outside overtake after the race?
Either way, nothing is more delightful than the new intro whereby the excitement of George Russell’s yoga/spiderman pose has now been usurped by the glorious visions of Bottas’ mullet.
Not only is the business in the front and party in the back flow extraordinary, but the new team colors for Stake F1 make me want to drop molly and dance to David Guetta all night long. By the time the team hits Las Vegas later in the year, Zhou and Bottas will likely be throwing glow sticks at Max from the cockpit as he laps them for a second time.
Unfortunately the mullet magic could not stave off another disastrous pitstop marred by a stuck wheel nut, now a regular signature of the Bottas F1 pit experience. I am the president of the Porridge Posse fan club and will always love VB, but I fear his days in the show are numbered unless Stakes can get it together at some point this year.
Then again as long as Logan “I’m worse than Latifi” Sargeant is in the show, Stake will always finish at least second to last.
Speaking of nice guys getting the driveshaft, Carlos Sainz shows up on the grid with the most beautiful lady, his new girlfriend Karen Donaldson, in the paddock. All he does is once again show that he’s the best Ferrari driver since Vettel, capture a podium, and when he finishes the race, his team isn’t even there to support him.
I guess this is understandable because they were likely instructed to find as many buckets as they could to capture Charles Leclerc’s tears for resell on the e-commerce shop. I mean Charles is bigger than Jesus in Italy.
Speaking of Jesus behind the wheel, this brings us back to Max. It seems the only thing that can stop him is Red Bull itself. As Christian Horner lived for at least one more weekend because his team conducted an “independent” investigation in to his alleged sexual harassment shenanigans and then exonerated him before the race. I’d joke that they’d probably hired some kind of TV judge like Judge Judy here, but that great lady would have thrown Horner in the clink in seconds I have no doubts.
Ultimately the big news is now that the secret kangaroo court has had its way, hard drives containing texts and audio of Horner’s shenanigans have been sent to paddock journalists and all the team principals. This resulted in a moment where Jos Verstappen even talked trash about Horner and was seen hunkering down with Toto Wolff in Bahrain this weekend.
This is kind of ironic because the way things are going, if Max decides to switch over to a Merc for 2025, it will be the silver arrows that ultimately ends his dominant streak, just not in the way they would have liked, but instead by bumbling the aero and power on another car, while Lewis blazes by in Ferrari red.
Been a fan since 2003, and must agree. At times I was thinking that if not for the hype of a "season opener", this was nearly as boring as France 2019. Max deserves his praise, and I'm not trying to downplay his frankly flawless driving the last 18 months, but these regulations have been a massive disaster. The cost cap has stopped any chance of a team catching up, so the money that should be allowing Ferrari and Merc close the gap is being spent elsewhere on excessively extravagant car reveals and sponsor events, let alone in entire race series (ex. Ferrari's Le Mans campaign last year). The cars still can't pass without DRS (this was one of the least overtakes in a Bahrain GP ever), and Ross Brawn's warning that teams would be stopped from getting too far up front has expectingly fell flat as a lie.
The least we can hope for is Max to get a proper teammate (not that anyone outside Lewis, Fernando and maybe Charles would even stand a chance) to save us from this. Reliability isn't even a factor anymore either. A period of criticism is probably what this sport needs, forcing it to reinvent itself and hopefully simplify the formula. 2007-2012 should be a blueprint; make the cars smaller, give the big boys a blank check to their their job (ten teams are never going to compete for podiums, no matter how hard you try to convince us it's possible, Stefano), and simplify the aero so the cars are more unstable on corner entry and exit (i.e greater driver influence). Looking forward to watching 20 Chevy Suburbans drive in a single-file line around Madrid in 2026.
I still think Checo is out by midseason. They then bring in Sainz as a big FU to Ferrari. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy watching Sainz beat LEC in a car designed for LEC, a team geared to LEC, and strategists working slowly towards a strategy for LEC