Good month, bad month
Charting the ups and downs of the F1 circus
Good month
Sarky Tsunoda
Tsunoda’s incandescent radio comments in recent GPs have been a rare cockle-warmer in yawn-fest races.
200mph roadblock
Magnussen solidified his position as a warp-speed wind-up-merchant by making his Haas wider than the North Jutland coastline to hold back his rivals in Saudi.
The Bear
What more can you say? The boy did good.
Smooth operation
Carlos Sainz was smooth in all senses in Melbourne, winning two weeks after having his appendix taken out.
Serenity personified
Kudos to Max Verstappen, still crushing the field despite being in the eye of a bad-PR tornado – and his dad getting involved. Strong stuff.
Bad month
One car down
Williams was reduced to one car in Oz due to a lack of spares – a team that once produced Le Mans and BTCC winners in addition to its Formula 1 activities. Very sad.
Alpine goes full Mastercard-Lola
Alpine has been reduced to levels of ridicule even the most sophisticated F1 modelling software couldn’t have predicted – its new car is appallingly slow.
Suck it up
Jeddah looked like it had almost as many plastic bags floating around as it did fans in attendance, eagerly hoovered up by F1 cars as they sped round.
The Prez
Last year Mohammed Ben Sulayem said he would be stepping back from day to day involvement with F1. How is that working out?
Lack of action
It’s a top-five lockout in the constructors’ championship. Should there be a new prize for a team finishing sixth in the championship – just like the Jim Clark Trophy in the good old 1980s?