Where ARE The COTA Stewards???

Jeddah GP

I'm knackered but I just finished watching the GP so here's the highlight reel

Another terrible week for Alpine, Estaban Ocon finishing outside of the points (P13) and Pierre Gasly forced to retire after a gearbox issue on lap one.

Lance Stroll, who was the only other driver to DNF, went into the barriers early into the race causing a yellow flag and a safety car.

"Can you bring it back Lance?" "No I'm in the f**cking wall"

Behind the safety car, everyone except Norris, Hamilton, Hulkenberg and Guanyu pit. Despite the pit-lane traffic, Perez managed to get away before Alonso. Leclerc had to wait a bit, but came out behind Perez. Norris led the lineup until lap 13, when he was overtaken by Verstappen with DRS.

Almost every driver boxing got chaotic quick, but no one had it as bad as Daniel Ricciardo who had a 45 second pit stop. It almost rivals the 52 second pit-stop Bottas had in Bahrain. The Aussie also spun out on Lap 49 for seemingly no reason, a depressing end to a frustrating weekend for him.

Bearman, of course the talk of the paddock these last few days, placed P7 in his first ever F1 race after qualifying P11, becoming the 68th driver to ever score points on debut! He was also voted driver of the day (48% of the vote) but will likely not be racing in Australia, as Sainz is set to recover by then.

"You're doing a mega job out there" - Ferrari to Bearman

"Just uh yeah, difficult to overtake. but uh…thank you. I really enjoyed it. It was so much fun." - Bearman after the race

Lando Norris, who joked in an earlier interview that he would have to jump start as the car was "so slow on the straights [they] can't even overtake," was seen accidentally jump starting. He was not penalised, as the sensors did not sense him crossing the border.

Piastri, on the other hand, was stuck behind a defending Hamilton. On two separate occasions, he gained enough to overtake, but went off into the run-off area and had to give the position back. Mclaren tried to appeal to the stewards when Hamilton was suspected to be moving under breaking, but no penalties were applied.

"That was Hamilton moving under breaking, that was almost an accident we're reporting it"

The fight ended anti-climatically when Hamilton had to box, coming out of the pits just behind Bearman and ending up behind Norris when Bearman moved up. This position was kept until the end of the race, with Norris finishing P8 and Hamilton P9. Norris did get a black and white flag for weaving, but no penalty. Piastri finished P4.

"They're killing us in the high speed!" - Hamilton about Oscar, who was gaining on him

"That's impressive through the high speed with him" - Hamilton about Norris

Talking about defending, Magnussen (who had 20 seconds worth of penalties after "causing a collision" with Albon in turn 4 and "leaving the track and gaining an advantage" in a separate incident) held back all the cars behind him for his teammate. This put Hulkenberg into the points, with Albon just missing out despite passing Tsunoda with a brilliant move.

"He's getting frustrated, to be honest here, behind Magnussen" - Vowles about Albon

Verstappen crossed the finish line in P1, making his 100th podium in F1 (only the 7th other driver to achieve this). The Red Bull engineers cheered for him and Perez from the balcony above the podium.

"...another fantastic weekend.." - Verstappen, after crossing the line (I couldn't hear the rest and I replayed it 3 times)

Perez and Leclerc finished behind him in P2 and P3 respectively.

All 4 Brits finished in a row (Russell in front of Bearman, Norris and Hamilton) and Sargent placed 14th, an improvement from his last weekend where the Williams seemed to have a lot of mechanical issues.

And that's it! The 2024 Saudi Arabian GP :)

franco's engineer begging him to stop going to williams by bus 😭

last week franco said he thinks it's really silly to send him a car just for a 10 minute ride when he can easily take a bus and have a pretty cool view on the upper deck

Can we normalise not having a favourite team? I just go wherever my favourite drivers do I have no concept of team loyalty

heard the annual driver's dinner was good this year

Kmag setting the fastest lap, Mclaren WCC, Ferrari double podium, Colapinto's thank you to Williams, Hamilton overtaking Russell on the last lap, Toto Wolff's "if we can't win...you should win" ...WHAT IF I CRIED

Seeing people genuinely be so happy for Zhou after he scored Sauber's first points of the season warms my heart so much. He's suffered so much scrutiny and pressure, being Chinese but also just being stuck in a bad car and not being able to show much performance. I've also never really heard him mentioned outside of his crash, his back marker-ing or at the Chinese GP, so I'm glad he's getting his moment :)

Someone needs to bring the williams mechanics a care package because I think they all deserve one after the last few races specifically

🎙️: the first real mistake from you this year?

🦁: i wouldn't say so. i would happily invite everyone in this paddock to drive that car and try to go faster than me.

Didn't get a video but here's Lewis's post-race interview speech:

"Since 2021 Ive just, everyday, getting up trying to fight to train to put my mind to the task and work as hard as i can with this amazing team. And this is my last race here at the British Grand Prix with this team. So i wanted to win this so much for them, because I love them, I appreciate them so much because of all the hard work they've been putting in all these years. I'm very grateful to everyone in this team everyone at Mercedes and all our partners, and otherwise to all our incredible fans. I can see you lap by lap as I was coming round and there's just no greater feeling than to finish at the front."

"A big big thank you to everyone back at the factory and here. I love you guys, god bless you."

Spot the difference