FLN Report: 2016 Austrian GP

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First Lap Nutcase

4 min readJul 3, 2016

I am just gonna come out and say it, all tracks should have kerbs that break cars that go over the track limits. It is because of the “baguette” kerbs that we had such an exciting race, and nothing else. The kerbs were responsible for Max “Young Max Verstappen” Verstappen’s accident in free practice and for Nico Rosberg’s accident in the same which lead to him incurring a grip penalty after his gearbox had to be replaced. They also took out Sergio Perez’s rear suspension in Q1 and Daniil Kvyat. It didn’t end there though because even after qualifying was over Williams found out Felipe Massa’s front wing was so damaged they had to replace it and start from the pit lane in the race. The humble baguette kerb wreaked havoc on 5 drivers! 5! Not even exploding Pirelli’s or non-combusting Renault power units had that much of an impact! Bravo. The real question is who do we give credit to? The French for inventing the baguette or Red Bull for fitting their track with such a destructive concrete bread?

After all the chaos in Qualifying the grid saw Lewis Hamilton up top followed by Nico “Le Mans Winner Nico Hulkenberg” Hulkenberg in P2 and Jenson Button in P3. I know how you feel after reading those last four words and let me assure you IT IS NOT 2012. I repeat IT IS NOT 2012. McLaren by some grace of a pagan baguette God ended up in P3 after both Vettel and Rosberg incurred penalties. That all came to an end as soon as the race started as both the Hulk and JB fell back almost as if they were pulling the ol’ “Wehrlein reverse on the grid” technique. While the Red Bulls and the Ferraris and Nico Rosberg went through. After the first round of pitstops Vettel was in the lead of the race and all was well, Ferrari’s pitwall decided that there was no reason at all to pitstop or pay attention to any of Mercedes’ race strategy. While they were into their second cup of espresso Vettel’s tire blew up, as is his birthday tradition. This lead to a safety car period after which we saw some legitimately good racing in the mid field. Force India vs Williams vs Sauber vs McLaren vs Haas while Esteban Gutierrez of Haas got passed by almost everyone the real loser of all this was Renault whose drivers had to resort to pulling triple moves to prevent a Manor from over taking them. Up front Nico Rosberg found himself leading the race much to the chagrin of the Brits. Which forced Hamilton to charge up the field and on the last lap of the race force contact with Nico Rosberg who refused to give up a corner but in the process gave up his front wing. Hamilton ended the race first with Verstappen second and Kimi Raikkonen finished third.

Of note in this race is that McLaren finished 6th! 6th! Remember when Checo Perez was in McLaren in 2013 and was called a POS when he came in 6th? Now a mere three years later Woking is celebrating like if they won the champion’s league for sixth place. It’s amazing what the power of dreams can do eh? Speaking of Perez he crashed out on the final lap of the race seemingly due to a suspension failure, which means that since Hulkenberg also retired due to “vibrations” means Force India collected no points this race. Manor’s Wehrlein finished tenth which is a great finish for them and gives Pascal his first ever points finish of what will be many to come. I’m calling it now, Pascal will be the new man to don the “Young Max Verstappen” title…Pascal “Young Max Verstappen” Werhlein, I like the sound of that. Also where the hell was Kvyat? That boy pulled a disappearing trick worthy of being in the next installment of the hilariously unironic “Now You see Me” movie franchise.

The greatest news however though is that HAAS F1 very own Lafayette(Everyone give it up for America’s favorite fighting Frenchman!) finished 7th and brough home some points to the ol’ stars and stripes on our own independence day weekend. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS BOYS! FREEDOM PARTY!!!!