This weekend saw Formula One hit France for the first time in a decade as they resumed racing at Circuit Paul Ricard, after a 28 year absence.
In a weekend that saw high drama, a surprise performer in qualifying and much more, there is plenty to round up from the 2018 French Grand Prix weekend.
British Constructor Woes
This weekend proved to be a total nightmare for a legendary pair of British constructors as McLaren and Williams struggled to deliver.
Whilst it is no longer a surprise to see Williams struggling this season, McLaren have really gone off the boil lately.
Off track issues such as rumours over Fernando Alonso’s future and mutters of a strike against 25p Freddo chocolate bars for their hard work surely can’t be helping the Woking based outfit, as they thrive to be firmly in midfield.
Both drivers were quite frank after qualifying about their situation with Stoffel Vandoorne perfectly summing it up by saying; “This weekend has not been good for us – we need to do better…”
In all honesty, his comment speaks volumes about McLaren’s situation because their one lap pace was pretty dire overall – apart from Alonso’s 8th place in FP2 after doing his fastest time at a later time than everyone else.
Key technical staff at both McLaren and Williams might talk about their teams working hard but like other F1 fans, I can’t see any serious progress on track whilst Sauber start to get more into the midfield mix.
That is genuinely worrying because for two outstanding teams of the 80 and 90s to be virtually at back at this stage of a season is seriously wrong and improvement is needed fast.
In a fortnight, we have the British Grand Prix so if they don’t show any progress by there, it will more than likely raise more questions about what is going on behind the scenes.
This triple header therefore is pretty much going to be bleak if don’t get any wet qualifying or race sessions.
Hamilton hits back
After two races without victory, Lewis Hamilton hit back in fine style with a strong performance across the weekend.
With a new spec power unit, Hamilton demonstrated its pace from the off by dominating the whole weekend – apart from FP3, when a torrential rain shower curtailed the session five minutes in before representative times could be set by all.
Ferrari meanwhile saw their usual sand bagging trick backfire by that FP3 shower, meaning that we are yet to see fully comparable pace but Hamilton and Mercedes looks to have the edge on first look here.
That doesn’t take away from fact that this was a strong weekend by Hamilton as he reclaims lead of drivers’ championship.
Leclerc stuns
With rumours growing that Ferrari are planning to promote him into Kimi Raikkonen’s race seat, Charles Leclerc proved why he is worthy of at least being seriously considered with a stunning performance.
Throughout the weekend, Leclerc made steady progress but reaching Q3 in a Sauber is impressive and as the Monegasque said, it was an “amazing feeling” and one that is bound to make Ferrari sit up and take notes.
French Heartbreak
Pierre Gasly, Romain Grosjean and Esteban Ocon all entered this weekend with hopes of a top ten result in front of home fans.
Sadly, that didn’t bear fruition after Gasly and Ocon collided on lap one, ending their races whilst Grosjean missed out on a point.
Explaining what happened, Ocon revealed that he had initially collided with fellow compatriot, Grosjean and damaged much of the car before Gasly “lost it under breaking” and ultimately took him out of race.
Although “sad” at how his race ended, Ocon took heart from “all the positive energy” that racing in front of home fans has given him.
That energy is much needed as F1 moves onto the second part of its triple header in Austria next weekend.
Grosjean meanwhile had to carry damage for the whole race and is still without any points, which is “a bit painful.” now to handle.
The only positive is that Renault managed a double points finish at their home race.
F2 “killing” F1’s Future
“They are killing our careers like this, completely destroying them.” were the words of Haas junior, Arjun Maini speaking to Autosport, after yet another chaotic Formula Two (F2) weekend of reliability problems.
This lesson also directly affects F1’s future because a lot of teams run their junior drivers at this level with targets to meet, if are to keep F1 dreams alive.
Those targets however are becoming seemingly harder to meet due to unreliability robbing drivers of a fair shot at meeting those aims and consequently, F1 teams could unfairly end their association with their drivers at end of season.
One such driver who is starting to feel that his F1 dreams could be at risk, was Maini who unleashed a sensational radio tirade on the slow down lap after the Sprint race.
Here is what he said during that radio message.
“I swear you guys don’t support me at all. I do everything every session! You can’t do this to me, mate. I don’t want to race in this championship any more! F*** this!”
Initially thought to be aimed at his team – Trident, he cleared things up post race by confirming that the comments were aimed at F2 officials and defended the teams who were doing all that they could for their drivers.
Personally, I do agree with his comments because the level of unreliability is appalling, and no championship should be decided by reliability as most drivers are starting to worry may now become the case.
Ultimately though, F1 will be the series paying the ultimate price next decade if teams let present junior drivers go due to failure to meet targets through no fault of their own.
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