Probably the best race of the season? Lots of tension, unpredictability, mixed strategies, some fantastic overtakes, good battles... that will do me nicely. These types of tracks really suit the new engines and you can really tell the difference.

Solid race by Norris, fantastic race from Max and a great performance by Kimi, although i think they should have probably let him try the one stop like he wanted. But they have the data, I guess. Lewis got completely screwed by the pitwall and the safety car timings, but what can you do, it's Ferrari.

And also, the backmarkers were absolutely atrocious today, not just the Piastri incident (where a 5 second penalty for Sainz was a joke), but also the Audis and RBs holding up Kimi and Lewis and robbing us of a battle for P2. Not good enough from the race control, drivers or teams. Even with a busted GPS system they need to do better.

Finally, Aston are actually clawing themselves out of the hole. Maybe Newey isn't washed? That was actually crazy progress today, if Honda actually delivers an engine upgrade worth its salt after the summer break there might be some light at the end of the tunnel. Let's give the pitwall a pass for putting Nando on an absolutely brain-dead strategy - they are simply unaccustomed to having to do actual strategy after six months of races being glorified testing.

Williams though, fucking hell. How long can Vowels survive? They spent all 2025 focusing on these regs and they end up with a car that's 30 kilos overweight and gets leapfrogged by an Aston that started the year doing F2 times and whose engine has nonexistent deployment and lacking 60HP.

Driver of the Day: Verstappen, easily. Absolutely maximized the package, was able to nurse those softs home when given a bold strategy by Hannah and topped it with what's probably going to end up as the overtake of the season.

Overall nice race, not much else to say. TV direction seems better than last week.

Hulkenberg points finally! Also pretty close to the first Audi double points. Reliability is getting there for them

Such a shame for Piastri, he was driving quite nicely, but ofc his weekly dose of 2026 luck hadn't hit yet. Is Sainz blind or what, how could you not see both the blue flags and the papaya coming towards you at speed.

I am starting to believe RedBull is experimenting with some king of rage-based power unit, the more their drivers complain the better position they get.

Anyways, anyone got any bets on what Hamilton's 5 second penalty will be next race?

I thought it was a good race. The period while the leaders were stuck behind Hadjar (and lapping backmarkers, if I remember rightly?) was pretty tense. The Piastri collision was such a shame, it would've been great for the race if he'd have been ahead and Norris would've had to overtake on track.

I was shouting at my TV a couple of times. One when Piastri had the collision with the Williams in the picture-in-picture and it didn't get picked up on commentary until the replay. The other was that fact that they showed the coming out of the pits / safety car line before playing the team radio, so the commentators were treating it as "ohh, that was really close!" before realising it was in reference to a possible infringement. Not major things really, but it's a shame when it feels like I know what's going on more than the commentators for a brief period.

Alpine keeps going backwards. Already behind RB in the last few races and also beaten by Audi here. I hope for their sake they come back with actual good upgrades after the break.

A bit disappointed in Hadjar's pace. All he could do was try to help Verstappen by sacrificing a few of his laps and he barely beat Russel who was last after lap 1.

Ferrari was deemed the favourites here but end up behind three different cars :/

Norris, RB, Audi and Aston leave happy before the break, good for them.