Every team has strategists crunching the numbers to come up with the best strategy but the best one turned out be George whose job isn't even strategy. Absolutely brilliant by George.
True. I also don't know what was the RB's plan for Max on a track where the only real overtaking opportunity is the Kemmel straight. Yet, they opted for a high downforce package.
Exciting starting grid. Ferrari on pole with Leclerc but likely to be slower on race pace than some of the cars behind. Perez joining him on the front row, McLaren likely the fastest car, might be close with Red Bull though, different setup philosophies as well, and also "only" P4 and P5 on the grid so at least with some amount of work to do. Hamilton in P3, Russell behind the McLarens, behind that cars mixed up all over the place with a hungry Verstappen from P11 who looked mighty in qualifying yesterday. Will be interesting to see whether their setup choice of higher downforce was correct and he'll get some good overtakes in, or if he'll be stuck in a DRS train. The undercut is very powerful here as well (naturally with a 7km circuit).
I think on paper McLaren should 1-2 this, but they probably should've 1-2ed the last few races judging by their car performance and only managed it once. Verstappen should be somewhere among the Ferraris and Mercedes. But it's everything to play for.
It's amazing to see how this season has evolved. At the beginning I regretted getting a one-year subscription to F1TV. But racing in the recent months was great. It wasn't clear at any point who was going to win today, and I definitely wouldn't name Russell among the potential contenders until the final fourth of the race. That's pure joy to watch.
Oh my god. I'm a Lando fan. But they are making it difficult. Russell deserves that win. At the time Lando made the last stop, they had fresher tires than Russell, clean air (already the first stint showed that clean air is crucial and Piastri also said so). So why didn't they also try a one stop with Norris? Also the McLaren should have less deg from experience. Piastri drove the far better race at McLaren today.
Otherwise this was such a exciting race. Great to see so many people with a shot.