Hello friends, good vibes to all.
The race we witnessed yesterday came with high expectations after having seen the disastrous Suzuka race in Japan, we all expected it to have a little more color and action and the truth is that's what ended up happening. Of the four races of the season, this was undoubtedly the best and by far; the track of this circuit along with its weather are very demanding for the tires so we had to be very careful with them and therefore choose the right strategy, in the end this is what the whole weekend was about.
So what was the formula to follow? - The interesting thing about this is that there was a lot of diversity when it came to the choice, there were teams that went out with medium tires while the vast majority did the same with the soft ones because they seemed to perform quite well in the pole position. At the end of the day, it was the yellow tires, the medium ones, which ended up working better due to grip and durability. The worst? - The hard ones as they had not been tested during the whole weekend so the drivers who used them, Verstappen was one of them, suffered quite a lot on track. I would think that the cars were not set up for such tires, hence the drop in performance.
Saturday's pole position already told us what could happen on Sunday. A Piastri running very well, even better than his teammate Norris; a Mercedes that continues to show good things, especially Antonelli who has surprised me a lot at the beginning of the season; the Ferrari that are also always on the lookout but without giving the final blow and the Red Bull that continue to have problems. The weekend of the world champion was to forget, many problems in his car especially with the brakes. If RB is adding up it is thanks to the good driver Max is because that car is not at the level of other teams like McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes itself.
As I said, the race was quite good and entertaining and the reasons for that were several. The first one is that drivers like Norris and Verstappen started from 6th and 7th respectively, so I swear we were going to see them trying to overtake positions. The second is that by starting with soft tires they were going to have to make early pit stops, this always gives play to the strategies since there were others, Ferrari for example, who started with socks and on the contrary to the rest would try to extend as much as possible that entrance to the pits. The great detail is that from the very start, the difference with Leclerc, who started second and in just the first lap finished fourth, was already noticeable. Starting with soft tires ensured a certain advantage, Ferrari's mistake was to give the Monegasque driver medium tires when he was so far ahead.
The whole race was super flashy, many changes of positions, there was never a driver who made a big difference, until the last laps there was a battle in this case between Russell and Norris for second place even to the point that the arrival of Piastri to the finish line was not shown to stay with that fight which seemed to me a lack of respect. In the end the Australian won in a very comfortable and convincing way his second race of the year, never endangered his leadership. Russell also has a lot of merit because he had several technical problems with the car and even so he was able to hold on and finish on the podium while Lando, after having started from sixth, finished in third place.
Disappointments. Leclerc, starting second and finishing fourth was not in the plans, bad strategy of the Italians, again. Tsunoda continues to be unresponsive despite having led, he barely gained a position finishing ninth; and I close with Antonelli who did not understand what Mercedes did putting him twice on soft tires to finish the race, it was known that he was going to finish in the race, he did it in 11th place. These results mean that the first four riders fighting for the championship are only separated by 14 points: NOR-PIA-VER-RUS. Haas scored double points and Alpine scored its first points thanks to Gasly. Formula 1 is very evenly matched, as we have never seen before, and this is certainly very good for everyone. See you in Jeddah this coming weekend.
¡Un abrazo a todos, nos leemos en la próxima!
Well my people, that's all for today, I hope you liked it.
¡Hugs to all of you, see you next time!
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