Formula One

[Buddahaid]

And Oliver Bearman finishes 7th making 6 F1 points on his debut drive. Wow!

[Jimbuna]

Red Bull's Max Verstappen took a comfortable victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, as Briton Oliver Bearman scored points on his debut in seventh for Ferrari.

Verstappen's win was his second in two races in 2024 and his ninth consecutive victory dating back to September.

Leading team-mate Sergio Perez to a Red Bull one-two, it continued the crushing superiority Verstappen has had over the Formula 1 field for nearly two years.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc came third.

Bearman, standing in for Carlos Sainz after the Spaniard underwent an appendectomy, became at 18 years old the youngest British driver in F1 history, and the third youngest ever.

He drove with maturity to fend off a potential challenge from McLaren's Lando Norris and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton as they fought back after late pit stops for fresh tyres on inverted strategies.

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[Jimbuna]

Carlos Sainz led Charles Leclerc to a Ferrari one-two in the Australian Grand Prix as Max Verstappen's domination of Formula 1 stalled.

Sainz swept by the world champion's Red Bull into the lead on the second lap before the Dutchman retired with a brake failure after just four laps.

The Spaniard then controlled the race as Leclerc passed McLaren's Lando Norris in the first pit-stop period.

The race ended under a virtual safety car after a crash for George Russell.

Chasing Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin for sixth place, the Mercedes driver lost control at Turn Six on the final lap and suffered a crash, the car coming to rest on its side, held up in the air by landing on its left-front wheel. Russell was unhurt.

Alonso and Russell were called to the stewards, who penalised the Spaniard 20 seconds, dropping him to eighth place, and gave him three penalty points on his licence for what stewards said driving "in a manner that was at very least 'potentially dangerous' given the very high speed nature of that point of the track".

Alonso admitted slowing too early and then accelerating again before braking, but said he got the manoeuvre "slightly wrong".

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Max Verstappen cruised to a comfortable victory in the Japanese Grand Prix, leading team-mate Sergio Perez to a Red Bull one-two.

Verstappen took an early race stoppage at Suzuka in his stride as he secured his third victory in four races this season.

Red Bull were in a league of their own in a race dominated by tyre strategy.

Carlos Sainz passed team-mate Charles Leclerc late on to secure third as Ferrari used differing strategies.

The race was red flagged on the first lap when RB's Daniel Ricciardo moved over on Alex Albon's Williams on the run between Turns Two and Three and the two touched and crashed at high speed.

Both were unhurt but the barriers needed repairing and the race was stopped for 20 minutes.

Verstappen had converted pole position into the lead at the first start and he did so again on the second, and took immediate control of the race on his way to his 57th career victory and a 13-point championship lead despite retiring from the last race in Australia.

Perez was less serene but still comfortable compared to the rest of the field as Red Bull underlined their overwhelming superiority.

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Hamilton wins British GP for ninth time

Lewis Hamilton won a race-long fight with Max Verstappen and Lando Norris at a gripping, wet-dry British Grand Prix to take his first victory since December 2021.

Hamilton had just enough to hold off a late charge from Verstappen’s Red Bull to take his 104th career win, and his ninth at home to become the record-holder for victories at a single circuit.

Verstappen, who had struggled for pace through much of a race that was hit by two separate periods of rain, came alive in the closing laps to take second place from Norris, who grabbed the final position on the podium.

Hamilton appeared to be in tears in the car as he told his team: "This means so much to me," as they congratulated him over the radio.

“This one means a lot to us all,” his engineer Peter Bonnington said. “I love you, Bono,” Hamilton replied.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff described the win as “a fairytale” for them and Hamilton.

Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri, who was also in the lead fight for the first half of the race, took fourth place ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

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[Jimbuna]

Piastri wins in Hungary after Norris team orders row

Oscar Piastri took his maiden grand prix victory in a McLaren one-two ahead of Lando Norris in a dramatic race in Hungary, amid a heated row over team orders.

Behind them, in a race full of see-sawing action, old rivals Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen collided as they disputed third place.

Both continued but Hamilton held on to third and the Red Bull driver, his race full of radio messages peppered with swearing, dropped back to finish fifth behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

McLaren’s team orders controversy unfolded as they tried to manage their way to a one-two, their first since the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

Piastri led Norris for most of the race after taking the lead in a three-car fight between them and Verstappen around the first corner.

But an earlier final pit stop for Norris - made by McLaren to protect him against Hamilton’s Mercedes, which had stopped earlier - put him ahead of Piastri.

Norris was repeatedly asked to slow and let Piastri back past, and reminded of his responsibility to the team, but he refused to do so until just two laps from the end.

His engineer Will Joseph reminded him to “remember every Sunday morning meeting” and “I tried to protect you”.

He also told him that “the way to win a championship is with the team - you’re gonna need Oscar and you’re going to need the team”.

Norris argued that Piastri would have to catch him before he would let him by but all the time he was extending his lead.

For a long time, it appeared as if Norris would refuse to carry out the order, but in the end he acquiesced.

Hamilton and Verstappen collide on track

Hamilton and Verstappen’s incident happened on lap 63 as the Red Bull driver dived for the inside at Turn One.

The Dutchman overshot the corner and Hamilton’s front left wheel caught the right rear of Verstappen’s as the Red Bull speared past and into the run-off area.

It was the climax of a bad-tempered race for Verstappen as he railed against Red Bull’s strategy choices, that first put him behind Hamilton and then at the second pit stop also behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen caught and re-passed Leclerc but his anger seemed to spill over into his driving as he tried to pass Hamilton.

It was their second battle of the race - Verstappen had been stuck behind Hamilton in the second stint after making a later first pit stop than the Mercedes driver and failed to get by after a number of attempts.

Verstappen complained about his car’s performance, lack of grip and the team’s pit-stop choices, and when he was chastised by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase for going too hard too soon on his tyres after his final stop, he again swore.

“Don’t give me that now,” he said. “You guys gave me this strategy. I’m trying to rescue my race.”

But he did the opposite and, after the collision, dropped behind Leclerc and was unable to catch the Ferrari.

McLaren one-two overshadowed any team row

Piastri took the lead at the start as he launched off the line better than Norris and got down the inside at Turn One.

They went three-wide around the corner with Verstappen on the outside, and the Dutchman then swept into the run-off area, responding to Piastri jinking slightly left and Norris doing the same, and used a slingshot to pass Norris as he returned to the track.

Norris complained that Verstappen had broken the rules and had to give the place back. Verstappen disagreed but after the stewards said the incident was under investigation, Red Bull advised their driver to cede the place.

Verstappen did so, but responded with the first of a long series of angry messages.

At the front, Piastri seemed in control of the race, extending a lead of more than three seconds before his first stop and then building it to nearly five by lap 32, shortly before half-distance.

But then he ran wide at the fast Turn 11, the lead immediately came down to 2.1 seconds, and Norris began to close in.

Norris held the gap at less than two seconds for 10 laps, until McLaren decided to pit the Briton to ensure he was not ‘undercut’ by Hamilton, who had made his final stop on lap 40.

The risk for McLaren was that Hamilton would close in enough on fresh tyres that Norris would come out behind him when he made his own stop.

So McLaren pitted Norris to protect against this, and then stopped Piastri two laps later.

But this meant that Norris had gained time on his fresh tyres and when Piastri rejoined, he was three seconds behind his team-mate.

The bargaining over who would win the race continued for the next 20 laps until Norris eventually decided his best long-term interests were in doing what he was told.

Behind Verstappen, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz took sixth, while the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez and Mercedes’ George Russell recovered from their starting positions close to the back to take seventh and eighth.

RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll completed the points positions in ninth and 10th.

[Jimbuna]

[Buddahaid]

I think I just saw the payback for Max taking Lewis out at Silverstone a few years back and it was nice to see Max rattled as he raced outside his comfort zone.

[Cyborg322]

Congratulations to the Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company for winning the Hungarian GP and also for second place

[Jimbuna]

Mercedes explain Russell's Belgium GP disqualification

Mercedes say George Russell was disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix because his car lost more weight than they expected in a number of areas.

Russell lost the win because his car was found to be 1.5kg underweight after the race, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton elevated to first in his place.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said the car's tyres, underfloor 'plank' and Russell himself all affected the car's final weight.

Shovlin said: "The car can lose quite a lot of weight during the race. You get tyre wear, plank wear, brake wear, oil consumption.

"The driver themselves can lose a lot, and in this particular race George lost quite a bit of weight.

"George's car was the only one that had the problem, and it is because things like the tyre wear was much higher. It looks like we lost more material on the plank.

"We will collect all that data though, look at how we can refine our processes because, clearly, we do not want that to happen in the future."

All Formula 1 drivers lose weight during a race - sometimes as much as 3kg - because of fluid loss from sweating. In Belgium, Russell lost more than he expected to.

In addition, the decision by team and driver to switch to a one-stop strategy, when they had been planning to do two, meant his tyres had done around double the amount of laps expected, so had lost more rubber.

The underbody 'plank' is a device aimed at stopping the cars running too low, and they are measured by officials to ensure they do not wear too much.

Russell's still complied with the rules but it had eroded more than expected.

Russell pulled off an unlikely victory on the road having decided mid-race to stick with the tyres he fitted on lap 10, rather than stop again.

The decision leapt him up from fifth to the lead, from where he defended his position against Hamilton's attacks in the closing laps.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri also finished right on the Mercedes' tails in third place.

Sholvin admitted the lower weight would have given Russell a performance advantage.

"In terms of pace at the start of the race, it is nil because George's car and Lewis' car start the race at the same weight," he said.

"Obviously, as George's car was losing weight faster than Lewis' throughout the race, there is an associated gain with that.

"But you are into the hundredths of a second per lap. It will be very small because when you are talking about amounts like one or two kilos, they do not amount to a lot of lap time."

Shovlin said the outcome of the race was "bittersweet" for Mercedes because Hamilton had still managed to win after the team had looked uncompetitive in Friday practice.

Mercedes tried a new floor design on Friday at Spa but took it off both cars for qualifying and the race after their difficult day’s running.

But Shovlin said it was likely the new floor would be used again at the next race - the Dutch Grand Prix on 23-25 August.

"We are planning to do that," he said. "The reason we reverted the car to the Silverstone spec on Friday night was because we had a good race in Silverstone.

"Spa and Silverstone are not dramatically different circuits in terms of the corner speed range that you are dealing with.

"We had clearly introduced some problems somewhere. We think that was largely due to how we were running the car in Spa, not induced by the updates themselves.

"That was giving us a bit of bouncing in the high-speed corners, as well as a few issues with the balance.

"Going to that Silverstone car got it all back to normal. We have since had time to look at the data to understand what it was that we did, and we are pretty confident that we will be going for a reintroduction in Zandvoort."

[Jimbuna]