As 2025 draws to a close, something which has struck me this year is the way competitors appear to respect each other more these days.
This is typified by the F1 title battle this year between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. It all seems very gentlemanly, may the best man win, but still intense. I don’t know that you can say they are the best of mates, but they seem to get on. Clearly they are both competitive and are driven to beat the other one and anyone else.
Large chunks of the F1 press have been very confused by this. They almost have an expectation that being team-mates it would automatically have the hostility of the Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost days. Or the knife-edge intensity of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2016. Or in MotoGP a decade ago when Yamaha had to build a wall in the garage to prevent Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo from even seeing each other. It’s as if they are disappointed this hasn’t manifested in the Norris/Piastri fight. At least, not yet.
And let’s be clear, I love those battles too. Because I think that’s how *I* would be in that situation – angry and petulant. Wouldn’t you be? And for the media it’s obvious isn’t it? Needle sells copy, generates clicks, gets more views. But should we be disappointed?
In what was a busy weekend both in racing and personally, I found time to watch two live races and one recorded race (OK, so this was after the weekend). I also got one done before the weekend started.
It was annoying that my live picks were the most boring races I’ve seen in ages. I hope you fared better.
Formula 1 – R4 – Chinese Grand Prix
Shanghai International Circuit, Jiading, Shanghai, China
Seen live, 14th April
This race sums up the worst tropes of F1: lots of hype, not a lot of action.
The PR machine has been in overdrive about “the 1000th race” for a year. Yet when it came to it there seemed little happening at the track, a small handful of old F1 cars and very few dignitaries. They didn’t even get Bernie. What a waste.
The 1000th? Add the “World Championship for Drivers” since 1950, including those championship-counting Indy 500s and those races run to F2 rules, to the successor “Formula 1 World Championship” from 1981 onwards, then it is the 1000th race. This is not the same as the “1000th F1 race”, which doesn’t include Indy or those F2 races but does include all the non-championship F1 races back to 1948.
The Chinese GP is actually pretty good on a regular basis, Tilkedromes have this reputation of being terrible but Shanghai has been a great track over the years with overtaking and strategy. But not this year. This year was tedious.
Very little happened after lap one. I’ve seen many F1 GPs like this and I thought its type had been banished.
Hamilton passed Bottas at the first corner and ran off to win. To his credit, Bottas stayed within 7 or 8 seconds, the Mercedes pair basically cruising in team formation for the entire race. They even pitted together at the 2nd stops, choreographed beautifully, Bottas arrived just after Hamilton left and didn’t have to wait. This was done to protect against a Safety Car, with Ferrari and Verstappen having stopped already.
Ferrari played the strategy call. Vettel and Leclerc were switched but Leclerc was no faster, so he was put on the long game strategy and Vettel mirrored Mercedes. Running Leclerc long had put him behind Verstappen, he was able to close down the gap but not overtake, so this strategy was a net loss of 1 place. Gasly had a better day, close to Leclerc, the results sheet shows he was miles behind but he pitted near the end to successfully go for the fastest lap bonus point.
Renault won ‘best of the rest’ with Ricciardo. Alexander Albon had a fantastic run from a pitlane start to finish 10th. Kvyat and the two McLarens collided on lap one, two of the three retiring 40 laps later from the damage. I’ve no idea what happened elsewhere. TV direction seemed off par.
The Mercedes pair already have a significant points advantage over the field having finished 1st & 2nd in the first 3 GPs, the first time this has happened since Williams in 1992. This is starting to look a lot less close than pre-season testing suggested.
Next up is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a couple of weeks.
Hamilton (Mercedes)
Bottas (Mercedes)
Vettel (Ferrari)
Verstappen (Red Bull)
Leclerc (Ferrari)
Driver
Team
CHI
TOTAL
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
25
68
Valterri Bottas
Mercedes
18
62
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
12
39
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
15
37
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
10
36
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull
9
13
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo
2
12
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
8
Lando Norris
McLaren
8
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
6
Constructor
PU
CHI
TOTAL
Mercedes
Mercedes
43
130
Ferrari
Ferrari
25
73
Red Bull
Honda
21
52
Alfa Romeo
Ferrari
2
12
Renault
Renault
6
12
Haas
Ferrari
8
McLaren
Renault
8
Racing Point
Mercedes
4
7
Toro Rosso
Honda
1
4
NTT IndyCar – R4 – Grand Prix of Long Beach
Long Beach, California, USA
Seen live, 14th April
This one promised a lot. I thought the hard-to-handle aero package would create a lot of sideways moments and overtakes, maybe some sliding into walls. Didn’t happen.
We don’t have any idiots at the back these days, the ones at street tracks who used to cause a bit of chaos that perhaps wasn’t always welcome, gave the series a bad name for weird accidents, but made it all fun. Those days are mostly gone.
Nobody told the back of the field. Lap 2 Pigot slowed, as everyone braked Ericsson ran into Harvey. We finally saw a car in the flowers at the fountain!
It was then a long green flag run at a race where strategy choices aren’t available. Unlike Barber you don’t get the mix of 2-stoppers versus 3-stoppers. The difference here was between those starting on red soft tyres and black hard tyres, and vice versa later, but it turned out not to make a lot of difference anyway. The reds were durable on the streets.
Rossi and Dixon raced hard into turn one on the original start and again on the restart. Each time the pair pulled a gap on the field.
At about lap 34 of 85, Power overshot turn 1 with dust pouring out of his left front brake duct. He spun it around and continued only losing a few places. Ferrucci had previously stalled in a runoff and the series recovered him under local yellow.
After pit stops, Newgarden was 2nd ahead of Dixon, but Rossi had him covered as well. Looked like he extended his lead in every stint. The battle for second was on between Newgarden, Dixon, Rahal, Hunter-Reay.
On the last lap Dixon made the move on Rahal, who defended stoutly and got a penalty for it. Dixon was awarded 3rd. This caused half of Twitter to erupt in anger at Rahal blocking Dixon and half of Twitter to erupt in anger at the stewards for penalising racing!
Watching live it looked like Rahal made a harsh move but a fair one, he left space for Dixon. I was against the penalty. But on review it became clear Rahal made a second move right and then returned to his racing line. I’m okay with picking one of two lines and sticking to it into the corner, I’m not so okay with weaving. And I also remembered if it had been Michael Schumacher I’d have been all over it, clamouring for a penalty, so I can’t argue otherwise for someone else!
Rossi wins by over 20 seconds, the highest for something like 25 years. With this he moves to 2nd in the points standings.
Newgarden extends his points lead as Dixon drops to 3rd. Hunter-Reay gains a few spots. Rahal is a big points mover into the top ten. Colton Herta the big loser, just 7 points after sliding into the wall and out with steering damage.
Next up is the GP of Indianapolis in a couple of weeks.
Rossi (Andretti)
Newgarden (Penske)
Dixon (Ganassi)
Rahal (Rahal)
Hunter-Reay (Andretti)
Driver
Team
Eng
LB
TOTAL
Josef Newgarden
Penske
Chevy
41
166
Alexander Rossi
Andretti
Honda
54
138
Scott Dixon
Ganassi
Honda
35
133
Takuma Sato
Rahal
Honda
25
116
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Andretti
Honda
30
96
James Hinchcliffe
Schmidt
Honda
22
93
Will Power
Penske
Chevy
27
93
Sebastien Bourdais
Coyne
Honda
19
91
Graham Rahal
Rahal
Honda
32
90
Colton Herta
Harding
Honda
7
88
ABB Formula E – R7 – Rome E-Prix
Rome, Italy
13th April, watched 16th April
Halfway in the season. 6 races done before this one, 6 races to go after this one.
As clean a start as you can manage here and on a damp track, a bit of bumping but okay. Guenther had a huge slide and loses parts of his front wing. At the end of the lap Bird gets hit, car damaged, apparently out for the second race in a row.
Chaos on lap two!
Red Flag. Lopez broadside across the track and Paffett under his car. Lopez hit the kerb and spun by himself and caused a complete track blockage. Luckily for those caught in the melee it was just in front of pit entry, so everyone once released was recovered and the race order restored. Replays showed Sims in the wall as well. And Sam Bird managed to get his car to the pits so it was repaired under the red and restarted last.
On the restart half the field activated Attack Mode, although it didn’t seem to achieve anything. Frijns got alongside Buemi for 4th but couldn’t make the move.
Lopez got a penalty for contact with Bird on lap one. Reliability trouble for Mortara and Massa so we had FCY in which JEV overtook Da Costa as they braked.
Evans passes Lotterer for the lead! Tense move! Very forceful into a chicane, elbowed his way through, got a warning from the race director but only a wag of the finger. Lotterer was fine with it, good hard racing.
Fairly strung out field but the pace was hot, unlike Rome 2018. Everyone pushed all the way, not a lot of energy saving except in the last lap or so, this is what we want to see. I don’t mind a lack of passing when the cars are visibly flat out.
Bird got up to 11th at the end, excellent recovery, great work by team and driver.
Evans (Jaguar)
Lotterer (Techeetah)
Vandoorne (HWA)
Frijns (Envision Virgin)
Buemi (Nissan e.Dams)
Name
Team
Rome
Points
Jerome d’Ambrosio
Mahindra
4
65
Ant Felix da Costa
BMW Andretti
2
64
Andre Lotterer
DS Techeetah
21
62
Mitch Evans
Jaguar
25
61
Lucas di Grassi
Audi Sport
6
58
Robin Frijns
Envision Virgin
12
55
Jean-Eric Vergne
DS Techeetah
54
Sam Bird
Envision Virgin
54
Eduardo Mortara
Venturi
52
Daniel Abt
Audi Sport
44
Team
PU
Rome
Points
DS Techeetah
DS
21
116
Envision Virgin
Audi
12
109
Mahindra
Mahindra
5
102
Audi Sport Abt
Audi
6
102
BMW Andretti
BMW
2
82
Venturi
Venturi
67
Nissan e.dams
Nissan
19
65
Jaguar
Jaguar
25
62
HWA Racelab
Venturi
15
22
NIO
NIO
6
European Le Mans Series – 2017 R4 – Le Castellet
Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France
26th August 2017, watched 10th April 2019
18 months behind! This one felt like ticking an item off a list. A shame, I really like the ELMS as a good way to while away an afternoon or evening
This time they used the chicane on the Mistral Straight so the only interesting thing about the track, the super-fast balls-out run into Signes, was lost
ELMS catches you out because when you think things are settled with huge gaps after the first hour – it changes. After three hours the order can be completely different. This catches me out because I tend to put endurance races on in the background while I get other stuff done.
Teams put their rated drivers in at different times. Early you see a Platinum or Gold driver racing away to a healthy lead while a Silver or Bronze driver loses loads of time. At the driver change it switches, the lead teams put in their Bronze driver and the distant cars suddenly get a Platinum at the wheel chasing them down. It converges.
In LMP2 Ben Hanley gave Dragonspeed a huge lead which was lost when Bronze driver Henrik Hedman faced the likes of Nic Minassian and Felipe Albuquerque chasing him. And the same principle applies in LMP3 and GTE. Niki Thiim brought the TF Sport Aston up from last to 2nd. You have to pay attention throughout.
Unfortunately this featureless track is a hard watch, I lost the thread in the middle as my mind drifted and got hold of it again in the last hour.
At least the mountains in the distance look nice.
But will I get the 2017 and 2018 seasons done before the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours?
LMP2:
SMP Racing (Dallara P217) – Isaakyan / Orudzhev;
G-Drive Racing (Oreca 07) – Rojas / Roussel / Minassian;
Graff (Oreca 07) – Guibbert / Petit / Trouillet;
First ELMS win for the SMP Dallara and their young driver pairing. A 4th straight podium for G-Drive.
LMP3:
United Autosports (Ligier JS P3) – Falb / Rayhall;
Inter Europol (Ligier JS P3) – Hippe / Smiechowski;
TF Sport (Aston Martin Vantage) – Hankey / Thiim / Yoluc;
JMW Motorsport (Ferrari 488) – Fannin / Smith / Cocker;
Second straight win for SOR, 4th straight podium for TF.
Next Week
15th to 21st April, Easter Weekend so much quieter than usual.
British GT at Oulton Park on Holiday Monday.
24H Series at Spa.
Super Formula at Suzuka.
British Superbikes at Silverstone (on the National layout).
It might be a good time to catch up on past races but I’ll be using it to start, yes, start, watching Game of Thrones! Now I’ve got Sky I can watch it On Demand so I’ve already downloaded them to the box.
And if it is wet weekend and I can’t get outside I’ll see if I can squeeze in a WEC race or something.
Okay I admit this was a fun race. I really wasn’t expecting it to be this good!
DRS & Overtaking
The addition of a 3rd DRS zone left me assuming it would be filled with simple push-button-to-pass overtakes down the main straight and those did happen, too many times.
But for the most part the strategy worked. The DRS zone at start/finish often brought a following car alongside the car in front leaving the drivers to sort it out at turn 1. If they swapped places, the passed car got DRS on the very next straight, giving an opportunity to get the place back. That worked really well. I like it when the chances are fair. Sometimes he got his place back, sometimes he didn’t, and often the cars were side by side into the next corner.
And that meant the opening 10 laps or so were fantastic! Drivers were able to stay with each other and attack each other yet still leaving it in the hands of the drivers to hit the apex first.
It worked less well when a trailing driver used DRS to get behind a car, then got another DRS activation on the next straight and sailed on past. Although, you could argue the trailing driver was being smarter and using the zones to his advantage, deliberately waiting for the second activation to prevent himself being passed back.
So I concede that DRS can improve the racing. The big caveat? I’d still prefer technical regulations allowing cars to race closely without needing a flappy wing to get them close. There is hope in the 2021 proposals. In the meantime, stick with the consecutive activations so each driver gets a fair use, or better still, simply let anyone in the zone use it.
Team by Team
Charles Leclerc was a revelation. Topped the times all weekend, seemingly laying down an early marker against Sebastian Vettel, yet never in a negative, combative way. Open, friendly, welcoming, taking it all in his stride as if he didn’t feel pressure. Until lap 47. A cylinder failed, initially reported as MGU-H, and he started to panic as he lost a comfortable lead and gradually dropped to 3rd. To be honest he was lucky the car was still running at all and lucky the Safety Car came out with 3 laps to go, which protected his podium finish from Verstappen. He kept his head in the end and brought the car home.
Was it the sign of a championship challenge? Of course not. Not yet. It was simply a good performance in a single weekend. Vettel might yet dominate the rest of the season. It did show Leclerc’s potential, showed he didn’t need time to settle in, showed that Ferrari had made the correct decision on drivers.
Vettel himself was very close to Leclerc on pace but he got boxed in on strategy midrace, falling to 3rd behind Hamilton. He was still quicker though, but when he tried to race his way through, he spun. Ferrari couldn’t believe it. I don’t think anybody could believe that again he spun the car in wheel-to-wheel racing. But it probably wasn’t his fault.
There were severe gusts of wind all day, the pre-race coverage from Sky really showed it, even if the in-race coverage from FOM probably didn’t. As Vettel crossed Hamilton’s car’s airflow and unsettled his own car it wouldn’t surprise me if he also caught one of those strong gusts.
The Mercedes weren’t quite there but had enough to fight the Ferraris in the early laps, Hamilton was close enough to catch Leclerc. Unfortunately the All New 2019 Bottas reverted back to 2018 Bottas and by lap 45 was some 15-20 seconds behind Hamilton.
Red Bull were in no-mans land. Well, Verstappen was. Gasly again mired in the field after another poor qualifying effort. At least he recovered to 8th, but that would’ve been 10th had it not been for Renault.
Renault in the closing stages were running 6th and 7th even though they ran divergent strategies, Ricciardo stayed out long, even leading for a bit, it didn’t work in the end, Hulkenberg who started near the back had got ahead of him. But then both retired on the spot at Turn 1 at the same time! Both with car problems, either mechanical or electrical. I’ve never seen that before, both team cars out in the same place with unrelated problems within seconds of each other. They’ll be back but these points were vital.
Something Lando Norris knows. He had a great day. Fell back early then raced his way through, putting solid moves on the likes of Kimi Raikkonen. 8th became 6th when the Renaults went out. A much better showing of speed for McLaren. Lots of potential at McLaren this year. They aren’t quite with the works team on speed, but they might beat them if they finish more races and are definitely hugely better than last year. Sainz suffered damage early, needed a new wing and ran at the back until retiring late on.
Alexander Albon also impressed with some good speed and overtakes including on Kvyat who’d otherwise done a decent job before being shunted into by Giovanazzi, who didn’t get a penalty for it for some reason.
Alfa Romeo had Raikkonen up there and he fought back after pit stops dropped him down. Giovanazzi as above hit Kvyat, other than that I don’t remember seeing him.
Haas qualified well but Magnussen had no race pace at all and Grosjean had damage by turn 2 of lap 1 after contact.
I didn’t see a lot of Racing Point other than Stroll’s car getting damaged in the contact with Grosjean, sparks everywhere. With a new front wing he still caught and passed the Williams pair but had no hope of more. I don’t think I saw Perez all race, he inherited the final point when the Renaults went out.
Williams again at the back. Kubica started on the mediums (everyone else on softs) yet I noticed he pitted first, perhaps he had a slow puncture? He and Russell raced each other all day. Positively, both cars finished the race and right now mileage and race finishes are the most important thing.
Points
Just the point for Fastest Lap in Melbourne keeps Bottas ahead of Hamilton. Verstappen sits a lucky third. The Ferraris surely retain a speed advantage into the next round at Shanghai and should close the points gap. There’s a very long way to go yet in 2019.
The rest of the field is tight as anything. Early season reliability trouble is having an effect. It has long been a truism of F1 that you can’t throw away points in the early races to poor reliability, they’re worth just as much as the season-closing races.
BAH
TOTAL
Driver
Team
18
44
Valterri Bottas
Mercedes
25
43
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
12
27
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
16 FL
26
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
10
22
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
6
10
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo
8
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
8
8
Lando Norris
McLaren
6
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
4
4
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull
2
Lance Stroll
Racing Point
2
2
Alexander Albon
Toro Rosso
1
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1
1
Sergio Perez
Racing Point
A lucky break for Mercedes but I think this just gives them a temporary advantage. Ferrari will be quicker at fast, open tracks which make up the bulk of the calendar.
BAH
TOTAL
Constructor
43
87
Mercedes
26
48
Ferrari
16
31
Red Bull Honda
6
10
Alfa Romeo Ferrari
8
Haas Ferrari
8
8
McLaren Renault
6
Renault
1
3
Racing Point Mercedes
2
3
Toro Rosso Honda
Williams Mercedes
Catch-Up
Nothing!
With the previous week off work (watching all that MotoGP), last week I was very busy and never got around to catching up with anything in the evenings. Over the weekend I was getting jobs done and visiting family for Mother’s Day.
Next Week
1st to 7th April
IndyCar is at Barber Motorsports Park. I need to watch the first two rounds and hope to do that by then, next week’s post may be an IndyCar Special. It helps that UK and US are back in sync with DST. Unlike the previous race I can actually get home for it.
This is likely to be the only live race I’ll see this weekend. I’m at an astronomy course on Saturday, then o Sunday I’m probably helping to put up a fence!
Your other viewing options include:
BTCC Brands Hatch on ITV4. I considered actually going to this one but other plans have cropped up, there are plenty of other chances though.
WTCR Marrakesh on both Eurosport and, amazingly enough, the BBC Red Button. Of all the series. Plenty of UK interest with Shedden, Huff and Priaulx.
A comment on some of the races I’ve been watching. A return to an occasional and hopefully now regular series with the Calendars all updated.
I usually catch one or two live races per weekend and spend time in the week catching up on other things. This time I didn’t see anything live – I had other plans – but I did focus on two events. I’ll be catching up with “Super Sebring” WEC & IMSA another time.
Week 11: 11-17 March 2019
Formula E – R5 – Hong Kong ePrix
A lot of cars in a narrow, tight space led to contact and red flags and safety cars. It wasn’t the cleanest race in the world.
At least it was close for the race lead. Bird and Lotterer went flat out all the way. Bird made a lot of stout attacks, Lotterer repelled them with a lot of stout defences. For the most part this was close, hard street racing. Possibly an argument that FE ought to have been a silhouette touring car series so they could have a bit of contact! These two were the class of the field and pulled away from the rest.
Sadly right near the end there was contact between them, which put Lotterer out. He was angry, he was right to be angry. He even dragged the damage car around until it went no further. There was obviously no malice involved, Bird didn’t plan to drive Lotterer out of the race, he just misjudged his braking – or his aim – and his car’s nose punctured Lotterer’s tyre. It was marginal, very marginal. But he took out the race leader and that’s a penalty. Sure enough, though it took several hours, Bird was later penalised enough time to lose the win.
That gave the win to street-specialist Edo Mortara, which leaves him tied with Lucas di Grassi for 3rd in points with the top four covered by 2 points. It also gave the Venturi team their first ever FE win.
Must mention Oliver Rowland who took the lead at the start and was fast until he hit the FCY limiter button accidentally around the tight hairpin, losing him many places.
A heck of a lot else happened, a mix of contact retirements and good old-fashioned reliability problems knocked some out of the race too. Some tight battles at the hairpin. I don’t have space to mention it all.
Attack Mode didn’t seem to do anything at this track, perhaps drivers lost a lot of time activating it.
Next up is a new race in Sanya, China on 23rd March. You’ll have seen it by the time this piece is published.
Highlights are embedded above or you can watch the full race HERE on YouTube.
Points
Car
Name
Team
54
2
Sam Bird
Virgin
53
64
Jerome d’Ambrosio
Mahindra
52
11
Lucas di Grassi
Audi Sport
52
48
Eduardo Mortara
Venturi
47
28
Ant Felix da Costa
BMW Andretti
43
4
Robin Frijns
Virgin
34
66
Daniel Abt
Audi Sport
34
20
Mitch Evans
Jaguar
30
94
Pascal Wehrlein
Mahindra
29
36
Andre Lotterer
DS Techeetah
Formula 1 – R1 – Australian GP
As ever a promising build-up lead to a slightly underwhelming Australian Grand Prix. The track just isn’t very good for close racing with cars this fast. At least it was better than the turgid ‘race’ served up last year. The atmosphere looked as good as ever though and it seems a great relaxed place for a season opener.
Okay it was mostly because Giovanazzi stayed out on worn tyres too long, but passes were made. Like I said in the F1 Preview the middle of the pack is going to be something special this year, especially when we get to more open tracks. Norris in particular had a good debut though not the end result to show for it.
And Kvyat really showed up an underperforming Gasly, who shouldn’t have failed to make it out of Q1 qualifying thus totally screwing up his Sunday, at a track where you can hardly pass.
Bottas really laid down a marker, taking Hamilton at the first corner and going on to dominate the race. There was damage to Hamilton’s floor. But I got the feeling Hamilton, being older and wiser these days, decided to bank the points for 2nd. He still beat Vettel and Verstappen and he knows – he thinks – he can handle Bottas later. I also think this is the case, but I also think Bottas won’t quite be the pushover of last year.
Ricciardo screwed his day by driving on the grass and hitting an access road, very unlucky that was there, he’d probably have got away with it otherwise. I’m sure if he’d held to the edge of the tarmac Perez would’ve given him space but it’s all very tight.
I was surprised how seriously the teams took the new point for Fastest Lap. I thought the drivers would like it and the teams would reign them in, but Mercedes encouraged Bottas to go for it while leading. Interesting!
Summary: Decent first third of the race, then fizzled out as the midfield traffic got in a line and couldn’t race, then it got a bit boring.
On to Bahrain on 31st March. It should be more representative for the rest of the year, both in pace and race-ability of the 2019 cars.
Points
Car
Driver
Team
26
77
Valterri Bottas
Mercedes
18
44
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
15
33
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
12
5
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
10
16
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
8
20
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
6
27
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
4
7
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo
2
18
Lance Stroll
Racing Point
1
26
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
Catch-Up
MotoGP
I’ve been been binge-watching recordings of last year’s MotoGP. I did a terrible job keeping up with it. After Jerez I stopped. I’m not sure why, since it is one of my favourite series. Maybe just overwhelmed with live stuff.
Anyway I made the choice to drop BT TV in favour of Sky (see my previous post), partly because I wasn’t using it to watch MotoGP live any more, which means I need to delete everything on my BT Youview box before Monday 25th March.
Of course after I made that decision the highlights rights got moved. Instead of BT Sport’s excellent highlights on Channel 5, we now get generic Dorna highlights on Quest. I haven’t seen it yet but reports suggest it isn’t as good. I have feelings of regret. However there is talk of a BT Sport deal on Sky coming this summer.
Due to the box filling up – the stupid series link recorded endless hours of free practice and started deleting old stuff and I didn’t notice – I had to go to the YouTube highlights for Le Mans, Mugello and Catalunya.
During this week I watched the following:
Assen, Sachsenring, Brno, Spielberg.
Assen’s Dutch GP (July) was magic, such a great race, really close all the way between Lorenzo and Marquez and then Rossi and Dovizioso rode their way through and Rins got in there too. This lot battling was just outstanding.
Sachsenring’s German GP (July) a bit less interesting, Dovi dropped back leaving Marquez to win with a gap over Rossi and Vinales, a slightly better result for Yamaha this time.
Brno’s Czech GP (August) was all about saving your tyres until the last few laps. That meant a big group circulated together but they weren’t going flat out, although it still looked pretty quick to me. When they pulled the pin it was Dovizioso on the Ducati and Marquez on the Honda, with Lorenzo on Ducati close behind, who made the gap. It would be Dovi, Lorenzo, Marquez to give the red team their second 1-2 of the year, Dovi’s 2nd win.
Spielberg’s Austrian GP (August) had a fun start with a big pack. Marquez pulled into a lead with the Ducatis chasing. This is a power track and the Ducatis have it, but the Honda isn’t far off. The was a duel. Marquez and Lorenzo trading blows with Dovi not able to stay with them. Another outstanding battle! Lorenzo took his 3rd win of the year.
And of course Silverstone (August) was cancelled due to torrential rain and a track that didn’t clear water.
Check out these short highlights videos. They aren’t like the F1 and FE videos, they don’t cover as much on track and the edits are a bit jarring, but if racing is most of all about the people, these clips get that across really well.
Next Week
Monday 18th to Sunday 24th March, I’ll be watching the rest of last year’s MotoGP and the Sanya E-Prix.
My plan is to publish these weekly recaps every Tuesday so you can expect this on the 26th, but they may jump around until I find the right day.
I Watch Too Much Racing 