Originally Posted by
SS454
The 2022 British Grand Prix, brought to us by Tom Cruise. Seriously though, what a race. The opening lap was horrific, thankfully all drivers walked away okay. I still do not agree with F1's red flag rules, allowing teams to change tires and fix their cars. I also do not understand why the positions were reset, making lap 1 like it didn't happen. However it played out, the racing after the Safety Car was EPIC!
Ferrari gets the win when they didn't appear to have the car to do it. Huge congratulations to Sainz with his first victory. For awhile it didn't appear possible, as not only did he not have the pace to keep up with Verstappen, but was slow than his teammate who had a damaged car. I did feel he earned the right to fight and keep his lead in the first stint, but once he was given fresh hard tires and still didn't have the pace, I believe Ferrari should have made the swap even sooner than they did. But things changed when he was pitted under the SC for soft tires. I felt bad for him the team tried to use him as a road block for Leclerc, but hats off to Sainz for going for the win without hurting his teammates race. Leclerc has every right to be frustrated, though his race might have been better if he didn't make the clumbsy lunge on Perez which damaged his front wing. He drove a brilliant race to be faster than Carlos with a damaged wing, and sadly Ferrari left him out to dry on used Hard tires and despite his best efforts, he was a sitting duck. I think his re-pass on Hamilton around Copse was unbelievable.
Red Bull probably had the car good enough to dominate the race. Perez got damage and the team seemed to make the right call to pit him early and give him the entire race to recover. That made up a lot of time in clean air, but he made his share of passes, though it wasn't shown on TV. The SC came out at the perfect time for him, and he drove like a wild man to earn that 2nd place position. Verstappen was in control until a very strange debris moment destroyed his floor. It was damage limitation from that point, and a 7th place position is pretty good. However, penalties perhaps should be given for his blocking and driving Mick Schumacher off the track multiple times in the final laps.
Mercedes came with some updates and it's almost miraculous how they went from about 1 second slower, to the fastest car on track. Just in time for Lewis to perform at his home Grand Prix. Toto Wolff might be right in thinking they could have won the race had the SC not came out. Hamilton did a much better job than the Ferrari's on the medium tires, and had fresher Hard tires that he could punish as much as he wanted in an attempt to pass. The team should still be very happy with a podium. George Russell in complete honesty, caused the big wreck. Careless drift to his left which touched Gasly and then speared into Zhou. Racing incident sure, but hopefully something he doesn't make a habit of, considering he did do similar drift on Bottas in 2020 which also resulted in a scary crash.
Alpine P5 with Alonso. It's reasonable to say they are the 4th best team on their best day, so anything above P7 or P8 is a remarkable result. Alonso says Leclerc was weaving on the straight and should be penalized as he was in Canada. I didn't see the footage of this, but he could have a fair point. Hard to say. Not sure what caused Ocon's DNF, but he looked to be on his way to scoring good points as well.
McLaren didn't have a particularly slow car, they were just beat by Alpine. Norris ran his race and scored solid points for the team. Ricciardo failed again and was 21 seconds behind Norris after a short closing stint.
Haas finally get a bit of luck and performed really well. Didn't expect that after a horrible qualifying result. Mick Schumacher finally gets points and kudos to him for putting the attack on the world champ, hungry for every point possible. Magnussen right there in P10.
Aston Martin had a good day after also starting from the back. Things could have been much worse since Vettel had a hard collision with Albon on the opening lap, and Stroll managed to not get collected go through the carnage. Despite all their upgrades, just scoring points is a satisfactory day for them.
Williams might have had a shot at one of their better results. Latifi gets some big credit for outqualifying Albon, starting a very impressive P10. He was never going to finish there since his car just doesn't have that pace. He held his own in the opening stint, but his lack of talent was eventually going to drop him back. Was really looking forward to see Albon's pace with their upgrades. I think people will underestimate how hard his impact into the wall was. Glad he is okay.
Alpha Tauri had a rough day to say the least. It's a particularly bad day when their drivers trip over each other, get investigated together, and Yuki even was given a penalty. Come on guys, you gotta do better than that.
Alfa Romeo probably lost out the most. A strong qualifying, especially by Zhou once again. So sad to see his day ruined by such a scary crash. I'm sure he will be sore for awhile. Not sure what forced Bottas into a DNF, but today was lined up for good points, only to walk away with a double DNF and a destroyed chassis.
Driver of the Day: Sergio Perez. Tough break put him to back and beyond. He kept his head down, fought his way back up through the pack and once good fortunate came his way, he made the absolute most of it with some brilliant and clean racing. Honorable mentions to Leclerc and Hamilton.
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